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From: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com (movies-digest) To: movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: movies-digest V2 #392 Reply-To: movies-digest Sender: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk movies-digest Wednesday, November 27 2002 Volume 02 : Number 392 [MV] HOW I KILLED MY FATHER / ***1/2 (Not rated) [MV] THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) [MV] DIE ANOTHER DAY / *** (PG-13) [MV] SLEEPY TIME GAL / ***1/2 (R) [MV] FRIDAY AFTER NEXT / ** (R) Re: [MV] THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) [MV] ADAM SANDLER'S EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS / ** (PG-13) [MV] ARARAT / **1/2 (R) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Nov 2002 16:24:54 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] HOW I KILLED MY FATHER / ***1/2 (Not rated) HOW I KILLED MY FATHER / ***1/2 (Not rated) November 22, 2002 Maurice: Michel Bouquet Jean-Luc: Charles Berling Isa: Natacha Regnier Patrick: Stephane GuillonMyriem: Amira Casar Jean-Toussaint: Hubert Kounde Laetitia: Karold Rocher New Yorker Films presents a film directed by Anne Fontaine. Written by Jacques Fieschi and Fontaine. In French with English subtitles. Running time: 100 minutes. No MPAA rating. BY ROGER EBERT One day a letter comes from Africa, regretting to inform him that his father has died, and was not able to return to France "as he had planned." That night, during a party in his honor, Jean-Luc sees his father standing among the other guests in the garden, beaming, nodding, his eyes twinkling: Yes, it's really me. Is this the father returned from the dead, or was the letter mistaken? The end of the film presents a third possibility. "How I Killed My Father" is not about murder in the literal sense, although that seems a possibility. It is about a man who would like to kill his father, and who may have been killed spiritually by his father. Because his father abandoned him and embraced freedom on a continent far away, the son has turned in the opposite direction and jammed himself into a corner, denying himself love, freedom, even children. This is a harrowing movie about how parents know where all the buttons are, and how to push them. Unlike most such stories, however, it doesn't blame the father for pushing the buttons, but the son for having them. We choose to be unhappy. The background is easily told. Thirty years ago, when Jean-Luc (Charles Berling) was about 10, his father Maurice (Michel Bouquet) walked out and never returned. Jean-Luc's younger brother Patrick (Stephane Guillon) doesn't remember the old man, isn't as wounded, but is a feckless failure who Jean-Luc has hired as a driver and assistant. It's almost as if this relationship forces Jean-Luc to take over the father's responsibility for Patrick. Jean-Luc is a wealthy doctor in Versailles, running a clinic that promises to combat the process of aging. A woman client asks about botox. A man complains he will be elderly when his 2-year-old is grown. At home, Jean-Luc lives with his wife Isa (Natacha Regnier), a "perfect" wife, hostess and adornment. He has determined it would be dangerous for her to have children. And then old Maurice materializes in the garden. Michel Bouquet, whose thin lips and twinkling eyes have added a knowing mystery to so many films by Chabrol and others, has returned unexplained. He would like money to reopen his clinic in Africa, but that doesn't seem to be his real motive. Perhaps he has returned simply because he is curious. He and Jean-Luc have that sort of infuriating relationship where the father does not have to say anything at all in order to be critical. His very silences are a reproach. His pleasantries carry an edge of irony. Like many parents, he is more beloved by strangers than by his children. Isa, for example, is drawn to him. And Patrick, who has no history with him, likes him. Only hard, cold Jean-Luc, who has founded his life on resentment, who takes no chances so he can never be hurt, hates him. The film, written and directed by Anne Fontaine, plays like a thriller that is toying with us by delaying its explosion of violence. But the violence in the film doesn't involve guns or blood. It involves quiet little statements, some of them pleasantries, by which the father literally devastates his son's system of defenses. By the end, hardly having raised his voice, Maurice has returned to the son he hurt so much, and finished the job. Fontaine tells the story with many scenes of unexpected insight. Curious, how Jean-Luc wants to buy an expensive apartment for his mistress (Amira Casar), who doesn't want one. Odd how he dotes on her child. One night a hooker takes him home, and Fontaine shows him looking through a door that is ajar, so he can see the hooker's parents at their evening meal. What are these scenes for? To show him always yearningly on the outside of a family? Who put him there? Is his wife really not capable of child-bearing? "How I Killed My Father" is about cold people and their victims. It is the misfortune of the brother and the wife to have Jean-Luc to deal with. He treats them both with financial generosity, but they can never heal his wound, and he lets them know that. So imagine Jean-Luc's pain when a young African appears in Versailles to visit old Maurice. This visitor is a doctor, too: "Your father was my mentor." One night Jean-Luc glimpses them laughing together in a way he has never laughed with his father. Sometimes in life we trade parents. Others are closer to our parents than we are. We are closer to the parents of others than they are. Maybe it is so hard to be successful as a parent and a child that this is what we're forced to do. Jean-Luc's tragedy is not that he lost a father, but that he never found another. He refused to look for one. And the father he never found is the one he killed. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 2002 16:25:01 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) November 22, 2002 William Hundert: Kevin Kline Sedgewick Bell: Emile Hirsch Elizabeth: Embeth Davidtz James Ellerby: Rob Morrow Martin Blythe: Paul Dano Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Hoffman. Written by Neil Tolkin. Based on the short story "The Palace Thief" by Ethan Canin. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT "The Emperor's Club" tells the story of a teacher who fixes the results of an academic competition and twice allows a well-connected student to get away with cheating. Because he privately tells the cheater he is a heel, the film presents him as a great educator, but he is correct when he tells that student: "I failed you." The chief curiosity of the film is how it seems to present one view of the teacher, but cannot prevent itself from revealing another. The film will not be generally interpreted in this way, and will be hailed in the latest of a series of sentimental portraits of great teachers, which include "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "Dead Poets' Society" and "Mr. Holland's Opus." All of those are enjoyable films, except for "Dead Poets," which is more of a show-biz biopic with students as the audience. None of them have the nerve to venture into the tricky ethical quicksand of "The Emperor's Club." The movie is too methodical, but it doesn't avoid the hard questions. Kevin Kline plays William Hundert. who as the film opens has retired after teaching the classics for 34 years at St. Benedictus School for Boys, a private East Coast institution that has an invisible conveyor belt leading directly from its door to the Ivy League and the boardrooms of the Establishment. The students are the children of rich men. The purpose of the school is theoretically to mold them into leaders. Hundert tells them that "a man's character is his fate" and asks them, "How will history remember you?" But more truth is contained in the words of a U.S. senator whose son is in trouble at the school: "You, sir, will not mold my son! I will mold him." The troubled student is Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), a smart-aleck who interrupts in class, disrespects the teacher, and has a valise under his bed that is jammed with men's magazines, booze, condoms and a pack of Luckys. Despite all of the molding and shaping St. Benedictus has performed on its students, the other boys of course idolize Sedgewick. Strange how, among the young, there is nothing sillier than a man who wants you to think hard and do well, and nothing more attractive than a contemporary who celebrates irony and ignorance. So numerous are these slackwits that now they even have their own newspapers published for them. Mr. Hundert is a bachelor, ferociously dedicated to being a good teacher, and silently in love with the fragrant Elizabeth (Embeth Davidtz), wife of another faculty member. She also loves him, but marriage and rectitude stand between them, and there is an effective scene when she says goodbye--forever, she thinks. Hundert redoubles his teaching efforts, which climax, every school year, with the Mr. Julius Caesar contest, in which the three best students compete in a sort of quiz show. (Spoilers follow.) After a rocky start, Sedgewick begins to apply himself to his work--not so much because of Hundert as because of dire threats from his father, the no doubt thoroughly corrupt U.S. senator (Harris Yulin). When final exams are written, Sedgewick has so improved that he finishes fourth. But because Hundert wants to reward that improvement, and because even for him a rebel is more attractive than a bookworm, the professor takes another long look as Sedgewick's paper and, after much brow-furrowing, improves his grade and makes him a finalist. The movie wisely never says if Sedgewick deserves to be upgraded, although we suspect that if he had placed third in the first place, Hundert would not have taken another long look at the fourth-place paper. In any event, Sedgewick competes in the big contest, and cheats, and is seen by Hundert, who finds a silent and tactful way to force him to lose. Now many years pass. Sedge-wick is himself a rich man and wants to run for senator, and will give an enormous endowment to St. Benedictus on the condition that there be a re-run of the original Mr. Julius Caesar contest. Does he at last redeem himself? You will have to see for yourself. What is interesting about the movie is that Mr. Hundert is fully aware of his ethical shortcomings in the matter of young Sedgewick. He does not let him win, but does not expose him. And the movie does not provide the kind of ending we fear the material is building up to, but finds its own subtle way to see that justice is done. The mechanics of the eventual confrontation between Sedgewick and his own son are ingenious, devastating and unanswerable. We are so accustomed to noble teachers that "The Emperor's Club" surprises us by providing one who is dedicated, caring and skillful, but flawed. As a portrait of the escalator that speeds the sons of the rich upward toward power, it is unusually realistic. Kevin Kline's performance shows a deep understanding of the character, who is, after all, better than most teachers, and most men. We care for him, not because he is perfect, but because he regrets so sincerely that he is not. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 2002 16:24:44 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] DIE ANOTHER DAY / *** (PG-13) DIE ANOTHER DAY / *** (PG-13) November 22, 2002 James Bond: Pierce Brosnan Jinx: Halle Berry Gustav Graves: Toby Stephens Miranda Frost: Rosamund Pike Zao: Rick Yune Q: John Cleese M: Judi Dench MGM presents a film directed by Lee Tamahori. Written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Running time: 123 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for action violence and sexuality). BY ROGER EBERT I realized with a smile, 15 minutes into the new James Bond movie, that I had unconsciously accepted Pierce Brosnan as Bond without thinking about Sean Connery, Roger Moore or anyone else. He has become the landlord, not the tenant. Handsome if a little weary, the edges of an Irish accent curling around the edges of the Queen's English, he plays a preposterous character but does not seem preposterous playing him. "Die Another Day" is the 20th Bond film in 40 years, not counting "Casino Royale." Midway through it, Bond's boss M tells him, "While you were away, the world changed." She refers to the months he spent imprisoned at the hands of North Korean torturers, but she might also be referring to the world of Bondian thrillers. This movie has the usual impossible stunts, as when Bond surfs down the face of a glacier being melted by a laser beam from space. But it has just as many scenes that are lean and tough enough to fit in any modern action movie. It also has a heroine who benefits from 40 years of progress in the way we view women. When Halle Berry, as Jinx, first appears in the movie there is a deliberate and loving tribute to the first Bond girl, Ursula Andress, in "Dr. No" (1962). In both movies, the woman emerges from the surf wearing a bikini which, in slow motion, seems to be playing catch-up. Even the wide belt is the same. But Jinx is a new kind of Bond girl. She still likes naughty double entendres (Bond says "My friends call me James Bond" and she replies, "Well that's a mouthful"). But in "Die Another Day" her character is not simply decoration or reward, but a competent and deadly agent who turns the movie at times into almost a buddy picture. The film opens with an unusual touch: The villains are not fantastical fictions, but real. The North Koreans have for the time being joined the Nazis as reliable villains, and Bond infiltrates in order to--I dunno, deal with some "African Conflict Diamonds," if I heard correctly, but I wasn't listening carefully because the diamonds are only the MacGuffin. They do, however, decorate the memorable cheekbones of one of the villains, Zao (Rick Yune), who seems to have skidded face down through a field of them at high impact. A chase scene involving hover tanks in a mine field is somewhat clumsy, the hover tank not being the most graceful of vehicles, and then Bond is captured and tortured for months. He's freed in a prisoner exchange, only to find that M (Judi Dench) suspects him of having been brainwashed. Is he another Manchurian Candidate? Eventually he proves himself and after a visit to Q (John Cleese) for a new supply of gadgets, including an invisible car, he's back into action in the usual series of sensational stunt sequences. For the first time in the Bond series, a computer-generated sequence joins the traditional use of stunt men and trick photography; a disintegrating plane in a closing scene is pretty clearly all made of ones and zeroes, but by then we've seen too many amazing sights to quibble. The North Koreans are allied with Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), a standard-issue world-dominating Bond villain, whose orbiting space mirror is not exactly original. What is original is Gustav's decision to house his operation in a vast ice building in Iceland; since his mirror operates to focus heat on the Earth, this seems like asking for trouble, and indeed before long the ice palace is melting down, and Jinx is trapped in a locked room with the water level rising toward the ceiling. (Exactly why the room itself doesn't melt is a question countless readers will no doubt answer for me.) Other characters include the deadly Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), whose name is a hint as to which side she is on, and Damian Falco (Michael Madsen), whose name unites two villainous movie dynasties and leaves me looking forward to Freddy Lecter. Oh, and Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond), who seems to have been overlooked, makes a last-minute appearance and virtually seduces Bond. The film has been directed by Lee Tamahori (whose credits include "Once Were Warriors" and "Mulholland Falls"), from New Zealand, who has tilted the balance away from humor and toward pure action. With "Austin Powers" breathing down the neck of the franchise, he told Sight & Sound magazine, it seemed like looking for trouble to broaden the traditional farcical elements. "Die Another Day" is still utterly absurd from one end to the other, of course, but in a slightly more understated way. And so it goes, Bond after Bond, as the most durable series in movie history heads for the half-century. There is no reason to believe this franchise will ever die. I suppose that is a blessing. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 2002 16:24:56 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] SLEEPY TIME GAL / ***1/2 (R) SLEEPY TIME GAL / ***1/2 (R) November 22, 2002 Frances: Jacqueline Bisset Rebecca: Martha Plimpton Morgan: Nick Stahl Maggie: Amy Madigan Bob: Seymour Cassel Betty: Peggy Gormley Jimmy Dupree: Frankie Faison Anna: Carmen Zapata Antarctic Pictures presents a film written and directed by Christopher Munch. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (for brief nudity and language). BY ROGER EBERT Oh, what a sad story this is, about a woman who never accepted anything good in her life because she was hoping for something better. Now she is dying, and in her quiet and civilized way is trying to double back and see what can be retrieved. We think we'll have enough time to tidy up the loose ends, and then death slams down. "Sleepy Time Gal" stars Jacqueline Bisset as Frances, a woman who in some ways has led an admirable life. She made her own way. Very early, she was the late-night disk jockey on a Florida radio station, and her later jobs reflected various causes or passing fancies. She was married twice, had a son by each marriage--and she also, we learn, had a daughter by a third man and gave her up for adoption. She has not been an attentive mother. One of the sons faithfully attends her bedside, but he observes, "She doesn't really know very much about me"--perhaps not even that he is gay. The other son phones in from London but will not supply a return number. She wishes she could contact the daughter. We meet that daughter early in the film. She is Rebecca (Martha Plimpton), raised by foster parents in Boston, now a corporate lawyer. She travels to Daytona Beach to buy a radio station for her employer and has the taxi stop outside a hospital there--the hospital, she knows, where she was born. She looks at it, but what can it tell her? Drive on. The radio station for many years played rhythm and blues; it was a "race station" when such stations were unknown, says its proud owner, Jimmy (Frankie Faison). He wants to give its record collection to the local community college. "I'll be damned if I know what it is that makes this deal so sad," Rebecca says, but Jimmy is not sad; he plans to travel with his wife, maybe to Malaysia. Rebecca asks him why he never moved to a bigger market. There were a lot of reasons, he says, and one of them was love. He loved the announcer who was known as the Sleepy Time Gal. Rebecca, looking at her photograph, has no way of knowing it is her mother. That night Rebecca sleeps with Jimmy, who has no way of knowing she is the daughter of the Sleepy Time Gal. The film is written and directed by Christopher Munch, who made "The Hours and Times" (1991), about a trip to Spain during which John Lennon experiments with homosexuality. In "Sleepy Time Gal," he does an unexpected thing. He shows us a story that is not completed and, because of death, will never be completed. Movies are fond of deathbed scenes in which all matters are sealed and wounds cured, but sometimes, with plain bad timing, people just die and leave matters undetermined. Frances has led an interrupted life and her death will not be tidy, either. Consider one of the most beautiful and mysterious scenes in the movie, where Frances visits the Pennsylvania farm of a former lover and his wife. She is in remission at the time. Bob and Betty (Seymour Cassel and Peggy Gormley) have been happily married for 30 years. But always Betty has known that Frances occupies emotional ground in her husband's mind. She doesn't know they had a daughter, but she senses their feeling for each other and feels no jealousy. That Bob still loves Frances is clear from the first time we see him, in an extraordinary closeup. I have seen Seymour Cassel in countless roles over the years but did not guess he had a smile like the one he uses to greet Frances at the airport--the smile of a happy man who is happy as a puppy dog to see her. This smile replaces 20 minutes of exposition. But see how the visit goes. Listen to the conversation between Frances and Betty, and listen later to how it is recycled in the book Betty writes, which glimpses the love of Bob and Frances from outside. The book is only guessing but becomes all that remains of that love. Frances flees from Pennsylvania as she has fled, we suspect, from everything: She is not a bad woman, but she mistrusts happiness and is frightened of belonging to anyone. After the grace of remission, she begins to fail, and the watch at the deathbed is by her son Morgan (Nick Stahl) and nurse, Maggie (Amy Madigan). They deal with her and comfort her. They care for her. But this is a difficult woman to deal with. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, Rebecca continues her search for her birth parents. "Sleepy Time Gal" is not, however, about a deathbed reunion; having given away this child, Frances finds she cannot get her back again at her own convenience. Munch's screenplay is tenderly observant of his characters. He watches them as they float within the seas of their personalities. His scenes are short and often unexpected. The story unfolds in sidelong glances. His people are all stuck with who they are and speak in thoughtful, well-considered words, as if afraid of being misquoted by destiny. Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced--because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival. Bob and Frances might never have built a happy marriage ("We felt the pull of our own futures away from each other," she remembers), but their 30 years of unrealized romance has a kind of perfection. Bob's wife understands that and remembers them both with love. She writes a book. Rebecca, who by now knows who she is and who Bob was, attends a book signing and meets her, but does not introduce herself. So one life slips past another, all of us focused on our plans for eventual perfection. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 2002 16:24:46 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] FRIDAY AFTER NEXT / ** (R) FRIDAY AFTER NEXT / ** (R) November 22, 2002 Craig Jones: Ice Cube Day-Day : Mike Epps Mr. Jones : John Witherspoon Uncle Elroy : Don "D.C." Curry Mrs. Jones : Anna Maria Horsford Miss Pearly : BeBe Drake Money Mike : Katt Micah Williams New Line Cinema presents a film directed by Marcus Raboy. Written by Ice Cube and D.J. Pooh. Running time: 85 minutes. Rated R (for language, sexual content and drug use). BY ROGER EBERT Craig and Day-Day are back in the ghetto as "Friday After Next" opens, after a relative's lottery win allowed them to spend the previous film, "Next Friday," in the lap of luxury. They're behind on the rent, unemployed, and as the picture opens their Christmas presents are being stolen by Santa Claus. That's the ghetto for you--a point the movie makes again and again, with humor that will cause some to laugh and others to cringe. There's already a controversy about the movie's TV spots, which "coincidentally" superimpose Santa's "Ho, ho, ho" over shots of black women. As it happens, I saw the movie at about the same time as Adam Sandler's "8 Crazy Nights," another holiday picture with an ethnic angle. That probably helped me get in a better spirit. Sandler's film is so mean-spirited that "Friday After Next," for all of its vulgarity (and scatology, and obscenity), seems almost benevolent by contrast. At least its characters just wanna have fun and don't seem mad at the world. The plot involves cousins Craig (Ice Cube) and Day-Day (Mike Epps) as roommates who have made one promise too many to their landlady (BeBe Drake), especially now that her man-mountain son Damon (Terry Crews) is out on parole. Desperate to raise cash, they get a job as security guards in the neighborhood mall where their fathers, Mr. Jones (John Witherspoon) and Uncle Elroy (Don "D.C." Curry) run Bros. Bar-B-Q. Other stores include "Pimp and Ho Fashions" and "Toys N the Hood," which is a nod to Ice Cube's debut picture "Boyz N the Hood" but leaves an opening for "We Be Toys." The action mostly centers around attempts to raise the rent money and apprehend the thieving Santa, and there's a rent party which fills the screen with a lot of music and dancing and an improbable number of great-looking women. The landlady complains about the noise until she is rewarded with favors both mind-altering and sexual from upstairs, leading to the usual broad humor when Mrs. Jones (Anna Maria Horsford) finds her husband cheating. A team of cops, one white, one black, both with ribald names, drift in and out. At one point they find a thriving marijuana bush in the cousins' apartment, and Craig desperately explains that it's for "municipal use." It turns out, once the cops confiscate the plant, that he's right. Some of the better laughs come from Money Mike (Katt Micah Williams), who is short but, because of his wardrobe, not easy to miss. He plays the neighborhood pimp. Which leads me to wonder: Why, really, does this movie need a pimp? And "hos" that are not part of Santa's dialogue?And as much pot smoking as in a Cheech and Chong movie? I guess there's an audience for it, and Ice Cube has paid dues in better and more positive movies ("Barbershop" among them). But surely laughs can be found in something other than this worked-over material. The original "Friday" movie, back in 1995, benefited not only from the presence of Chris Tucker but from a sweeter approach more based on human nature. The third picture has reduced the "Friday" series to loud, broad vulgarity, including Mr. Jones' obligatory battle with world-class flatulence. There's an audience for it, but it could have been funnier and more innocent. It's rated R, but when it hits the video stores you somehow know it will be viewed at home as a family movie, and that's kind of sad. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 03:21:19 +0000 (GMT) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Julie=20Ogwayo?= <jogwayo@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [MV] THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) - --0-1882099476-1038021679=:75577 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit PLEASE STOP SENDING THESE REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU'RE RUINING THE MAILING LIST gregorys@xmission.com wrote:THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) November 22, 2002 William Hundert: Kevin Kline Sedgewick Bell: Emile Hirsch Elizabeth: Embeth Davidtz James Ellerby: Rob Morrow Martin Blythe: Paul Dano Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Hoffman. Written by Neil Tolkin. Based on the short story "The Palace Thief" by Ethan Canin. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT "The Emperor's Club" tells the story of a teacher who fixes the results of an academic competition and twice allows a well-connected student to get away with cheating. Because he privately tells the cheater he is a heel, the film presents him as a great educator, but he is correct when he tells that student: "I failed you." The chief curiosity of the film is how it seems to present one view of the teacher, but cannot prevent itself from revealing another. The film will not be generally interpreted in this way, and will be hailed in the latest of a series of sentimental portraits of great teachers, which include "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "Dead Poets' Society" and "Mr. Holland's Opus." All of those are enjoyable films, except for "Dead Poets," which is more of a show-biz biopic with students as the audience. None of them have the nerve to venture into the tricky ethical quicksand of "The Emperor's Club." The movie is too methodical, but it doesn't avoid the hard questions. Kevin Kline plays William Hundert. who as the film opens has retired after teaching the classics for 34 years at St. Benedictus School for Boys, a private East Coast institution that has an invisible conveyor belt leading directly from its door to the Ivy League and the boardrooms of the Establishment. The students are the children of rich men. The purpose of the school is theoretically to mold them into leaders. Hundert tells them that "a man's character is his fate" and asks them, "How will history remember you?" But more truth is contained in the words of a U.S. senator whose son is in trouble at the school: "You, sir, will not mold my son! I will mold him." The troubled student is Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), a smart-aleck who interrupts in class, disrespects the teacher, and has a valise under his bed that is jammed with men's magazines, booze, condoms and a pack of Luckys. Despite all of the molding and shaping St. Benedictus has performed on its students, the other boys of course idolize Sedgewick. Strange how, among the young, there is nothing sillier than a man who wants you to think hard and do well, and nothing more attractive than a contemporary who celebrates irony and ignorance. So numerous are these slackwits that now they even have their own newspapers published for them. Mr. Hundert is a bachelor, ferociously dedicated to being a good teacher, and silently in love with the fragrant Elizabeth (Embeth Davidtz), wife of another faculty member. She also loves him, but marriage and rectitude stand between them, and there is an effective scene when she says goodbye--forever, she thinks. Hundert redoubles his teaching efforts, which climax, every school year, with the Mr. Julius Caesar contest, in which the three best students compete in a sort of quiz show. (Spoilers follow.) After a rocky start, Sedgewick begins to apply himself to his work--not so much because of Hundert as because of dire threats from his father, the no doubt thoroughly corrupt U.S. senator (Harris Yulin). When final exams are written, Sedgewick has so improved that he finishes fourth. But because Hundert wants to reward that improvement, and because even for him a rebel is more attractive than a bookworm, the professor takes another long look as Sedgewick's paper and, after much brow-furrowing, improves his grade and makes him a finalist. The movie wisely never says if Sedgewick deserves to be upgraded, although we suspect that if he had placed third in the first place, Hundert would not have taken another long look at the fourth-place paper. In any event, Sedgewick competes in the big contest, and cheats, and is seen by Hundert, who finds a silent and tactful way to force him to lose. Now many years pass. Sedge-wick is himself a rich man and wants to run for senator, and will give an enormous endowment to St. Benedictus on the condition that there be a re-run of the original Mr. Julius Caesar contest. Does he at last redeem himself? You will have to see for yourself. What is interesting about the movie is that Mr. Hundert is fully aware of his ethical shortcomings in the matter of young Sedgewick. He does not let him win, but does not expose him. And the movie does not provide the kind of ending we fear the material is building up to, but finds its own subtle way to see that justice is done. The mechanics of the eventual confrontation between Sedgewick and his own son are ingenious, devastating and unanswerable. We are so accustomed to noble teachers that "The Emperor's Club" surprises us by providing one who is dedicated, caring and skillful, but flawed. As a portrait of the escalator that speeds the sons of the rich upward toward power, it is unusually realistic. Kevin Kline's performance shows a deep understanding of the character, who is, after all, better than most teachers, and most men. We care for him, not because he is perfect, but because he regrets so sincerely that he is not. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] - --------------------------------- With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs - --0-1882099476-1038021679=:75577 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit PLEASE STOP SENDING THESE REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU'RE RUINING THE MAILING LIST gregorys@xmission.com wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">THE EMPEROR'S CLUB / *** (PG-13) November 22, 2002 William Hundert: Kevin Kline Sedgewick Bell: Emile Hirsch Elizabeth: Embeth Davidtz James Ellerby: Rob Morrow Martin Blythe: Paul Dano Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Hoffman. Written by Neil Tolkin. Based on the short story "The Palace Thief" by Ethan Canin. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT "The Emperor's Club" tells the story of a teacher who fixes the results of an academic competition and twice allows a well-connected student to get away with cheating. Because he privately tells the cheater he is a heel, the film presents him as a great educator, but he is correct when he tells that student: "I failed you." The chief curiosity of the film is how it seems to present one view of the teacher, but cannot prevent itself from revealing another. The film will not be generally interpreted in this way, and will be hailed in the latest of a series of sentimental portraits of great teachers, which include "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "Dead Poets' Society" and "Mr. Holland's Opus." All of those are enjoyable films, except for "Dead Poets," which is more of a show-biz biopic with students as the audience. None of them have the nerve to venture into the tricky ethical quicksand of "The Emperor's Club." The movie is too methodical, but it doesn't avoid the hard questions. Kevin Kline plays William Hundert. who as the film opens has retired after teaching the classics for 34 years at St. Benedictus School for Boys, a private East Coast institution that has an invisible conveyor belt leading directly from its door to the Ivy League and the boardrooms of the Establishment. The students are the children of rich men. The purpose of the school is theoretically to mold them into leaders. Hundert tells them that "a man's character is his fate" and asks them, "How will history remember you?" But more truth is contained in the words of a U.S. senator whose son is in trouble at the school: "You, sir, will not mold my son! I will mold him." The troubled student is Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), a smart-aleck who interrupts in class, disrespects the teacher, and has a valise under his bed that is jammed with men's magazines, booze, condoms and a pack of Luckys. Despite all of the molding and shaping St. Benedictus has performed on its students, the other boys of course idolize Sedgewick. Strange how, among the young, there is nothing sillier than a man who wants you to think hard and do well, and nothing more attractive than a contemporary who celebrates irony and ignorance. So numerous are these slackwits that now they even have their own newspapers published for them. Mr. Hundert is a bachelor, ferociously dedicated to being a good teacher, and silently in love with the fragrant Elizabeth (Embeth Davidtz), wife of another faculty member. She also loves him, but marriage and rectitude stand between them, and there is an effective scene when she says goodbye--forever, she thinks. Hundert redoubles his teaching efforts, which climax, every school year, with the Mr. Julius Caesar contest, in which the three best students compete in a sort of quiz show. (Spoilers follow.) After a rocky start, Sedgewick begins to apply himself to his work--not so much because of Hundert as because of dire threats from his father, the no doubt thoroughly corrupt U.S. senator (Harris Yulin). When final exams are written, Sedgewick has so improved that he finishes fourth. But because Hundert wants to reward that improvement, and because even for him a rebel is more attractive than a bookworm, the professor takes another long look as Sedgewick's paper and, after much brow-furrowing, improves his grade and makes him a finalist. The movie wisely never says if Sedgewick deserves to be upgraded, although we suspect that if he had placed third in the first place, Hundert would not have taken another long look at the fourth-place paper. In any event, Sedgewick competes in the big contest, and cheats, and is seen by Hundert, who finds a silent and tactful way to force him to lose. Now many years pass. Sedge-wick is himself a rich man and wants to run for senator, and will give an enormous endowment to St. Benedictus on the condition that there be a re-run of the original Mr. Julius Caesar contest. Does he at last redeem himself? You will have to see for yourself. What is interesting about the movie is that Mr. Hundert is fully aware of his ethical shortcomings in the matter of young Sedgewick. He does not let him win, but does not expose him. And the movie does not provide the kind of ending we fear the material is building up to, but finds its own subtle way to see that justice is done. The mechanics of the eventual confrontation between Sedgewick and his own son are ingenious, devastating and unanswerable. We are so accustomed to noble teachers that "The Emperor's Club" surprises us by providing one who is dedicated, caring and skillful, but flawed. As a portrait of the escalator that speeds the sons of the rich upward toward power, it is unusually realistic. Kevin Kline's performance shows a deep understanding of the character, who is, after all, better than most teachers, and most men. We care for him, not because he is perfect, but because he regrets so sincerely that he is not. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ]</BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1><a href="http://uk.yahoo.com/mail/tagline_xtra/?http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail_storage.html">With Yahoo! Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs</a> - --0-1882099476-1038021679=:75577-- [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Nov 2002 15:41:52 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] ADAM SANDLER'S EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS / ** (PG-13) ADAM SANDLER'S EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS / ** (PG-13) November 27, 2002 With the voices of: Davey/Whitey/Eleanore Adam Sandler Jennifer Jackie Titone Benjamin Austin Stout Other voices by Tyra Banks, James Barbour, Bobby Edner, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon. Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Seth Kearsley. Written by Brooks Arthur, Allen Covert and Sandler. Running time: 71 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for frequent crude and sexual humor, drinking and brief drug references). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC Heaven help the unsuspecting families who wander into "Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights" expecting a jolly animated holiday funfest. The holidays aren't very cheerful in Sandlerville, which is why the PG-13 rating mentions "frequent and crude sexual humor." The MPAA doesn't mention it, but there's also a lot of scatological humor in the film, in keeping with Sandler's inexplicable fascination with defecation, flatulence and bodily fluids. If this is not a family film, what is it? Well, the audiences for "Jackass" may enjoy a scene where Davey, the hero, slams a sweet little old man into a Port-a-Potty and shoves it down a hill. When the geezer emerges at the bottom, he is still alive, but covered from head to toe with excrement. Then Davey sprays him with a garden hose, and he freezes solid. Ho, ho. Davey (who looks like and is voiced by Sandler) is "a 33-year-old crazy Jewish guy," the film informs us, who is up before the judge on the latest in a long series of brushes with the law, this time for drunkenness. The judge is prepared to send him away for a long time, but kindly little Whitey (also voiced by Sandler) pipes up. Whitey explains that he is the referee of the local youth basketball league, and he could use an assistant. The judge releases Davey to Whitey's custody, not explaining why he thinks this drunk and vandal would be a good role model. Whitey and his twin sister, Eleanore (Sandler again), take the lad into their home, but he remains stubbornly ill-mannered, not to mention pathologically violent, until the movie's eventual collapse into obligatory peace and goodwill, etc. If there was ever a movie where the upbeat ending feels like a copout, this is the one. I can understand why Sandler might want to venture into "South Park" territory with a raunchy animated cartoon, but not why he links it to Christmas and Hanukkah. The advertising will inevitably use holiday images, and in the minds of most people those images will not suggest a film this angry and vulgar. There is also an odd disconnect between Sandler's pride in his Jewishness, which is admirable, and his willingness to display the obnoxious behavior of this particular Jewish character to an audience that may not get the point. That point is, I think, that Davey has lost his way through alcoholism and antisocial neurosis, and is finally redeemed by the elfish saints Whitey and Eleanore, plus the beneficial side effects of working with the basketball team. All well and good, but the movie lingers on the scatological stuff and adds the happy ending as if paying its dues. Did it occur to Sandler that he could touch his bases and make his points in a film that was not quite so offensive? That was, in fact, sweet and cheerful and family-friendly? Considering that his popularity and the movie's holiday packaging will attract large numbers of teenage Middle Americans not necessarily familiar with Jews, does he think this is a good way to get them started? Yes, I've argued against the requirement that ethnic groups must present "positive" images of themselves in the movies. I've defended Justin Lin's "Better Luck Tomorrow," with its criminal Chinese-American teenagers, and Chris Eyre's "Skins," with its portrait of alcoholics and vigilantes on an Indian reservation, and Tim Story's "Barbershop," with its free-for-all African-American dialogue. But those films are positioned to reach audiences that will understand them--decode them as their directors hoped they would. Won't "Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights" attract an audience for reasons (holiday images, Sandler's popularity) that have nothing to do with the material? What are people who want to see an Adam Sandler movie going to take home from this one? Sandler's most recent film, the inspired and wonderful "Punch Drunk Love," was not well received by Sandler fans; I heard from readers appalled by the way his audience responded to the film--before, in some cases, walking out. (How can someone in the dark of a movie theater tell "his audience" from themselves? Easily: The giveaway is inappropriate laughter, especially during serious moments.) Sandler has painted himself into a corner. His comedies have included generous amounts of antisocial hostility, sudden violence, dodgy material about urination, defecation and flatulence, and a general air of defiance. A lot of people like that. But they are not the people likely to understand the Hanukkah message in "Eight Crazy Nights." And those who appreciate the message are likely to be horrified by a lot of the other material in the film. What Sandler has made here is a movie for neither audience. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Nov 2002 15:41:54 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] ARARAT / **1/2 (R) ARARAT / **1/2 (R) November 27, 2002 Raffi David Alpay Edward Saroyan Charles Aznavour Rouben Eric Bogosian Philip Brent Carver Celia Marie-Josee Croze Martin/Clarence Ussher Bruce Greenwood Ani Arsinee Khanjian Ali/Jevdet Bey Elias Koteas David Christopher Plummer Miramax presents a film written and directed by Atom Egoyan. Running time: 116 minutes. Rated R (for violence, sexuality/nudity and language). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC Atom Egoyan has something he wants us to know. In 1915, he tells us in his new film "Ararat," Turkey committed genocide against its Armenian population, massacring two-thirds of its 1.5 million citizens of Armenian descent. This crime, denied to this day by Turkey, has largely been wiped from the pages of history. Egoyan is one of Canada's best and most respected directors. He and his wife, the actress Arsinee Khanjian, are Canadians of Armenian descent. When he told his children of the massacre, he has said in interviews, they wanted to know if Turkey had ever apologized. His answer is contained in "Ararat." Unfortunately, it is couched in such a needlessly confusing film that most people will leave the theater impressed, not by the crime, but by the film's difficulty. Egoyan's work often elegantly considers various levels of reality and uses shifting points of view, but here he has constructed a film so labyrinthine that it defeats his larger purpose. The story has three central strands: (1) A film is being made about the atrocity; (2) some of the scenes of this film-within-the-film re-create historical incidents, for our information; (3) there is a web of connections between the people working on the film and other characters in the story. We meet an art historian named Ani (Khanjian) who lectures on the Armenian artist Arshile Gorky, whose mother was one of the Turkish victims. Ani's husband died in an attempt to assassinate a Turkish official some 15 years earlier. She has a son named Raffi (David Alpay) from her first marriage, and a stepdaughter named Celia (Marie-Josee Croze) from a second marriage with a man who, Celia believes, was driven to suicide by Ani. When Ani lectures on Gorky, Celia often attends in order to heckle her with questions about her dead father. Further complicating this emotional tangle, Raffi and Celia are sleeping with each other. There is another sexual-political connection. When Raffi attempts to pass through a Canadian customs post with several film cans from Europe, he is questioned at length by a customs inspector named David (Christopher Plummer), who is on his last day on the job. Raffi says the cans contain unexposed documentary footage needed for the movie. We know, because of a scene at breakfast that day, that Plummer's son Philip (Brent Carver) is the lover of an actor named Ali (Elias Koteas), who plays the barbaric Turkish general Jevdet Bey in the film. Thus David is in a position to know that the film being brought in by Raffi may not be needed for the project. We meet the director of the film, named Edward (Charles Aznavour), and see him on the set, filming scenes that are often presented as reality before the camera pulls back to reveal another camera. And we meet the screenwriter, Rouben (Eric Bogosian). Both Aznavour and Bogosian, who are of Armenian ancestry, are used to provide more information about the atrocities, as is the character of Clarence Ussher (Bruce Greenwood), a character in Aznavour's film. He was an American physician who was an eyewitness to the massacres and wrote a book about them. The questioning at the customs station goes on, apparently, for hours, because David, on his last day on the job, is trying to determine through sheer skill whether the cans contain film or heroin. He could open them (in a dark room to avoid spoiling the film), but that would be too simple, and perhaps he thinks that by understanding the young man before him, he can gain a better insight into his own son. The scenes in the movie-within-a-movie document horrendous acts by the Turks against the Armenians, including one sequence in which women are burned alive. The film also shows Gorky as a young boy, shouldering arms against the Turks. There are flashbacks to show the adult Gorky painting in exile in New York. And discussion of the relative truth of two portraits: one a photo of Gorky with his mother, the other the painting he has based on this portrait. It is the same painting we have heard Ani lecturing about. You may be feeling some impatience at the complexity of this plot. It is too much, too heavily layered, too needlessly difficult, too opaque. Individual scenes leap out and have a life of their own; Khanjian makes the difficulties of her own character very affecting; the Plummer episode is like a small, perfect character study, and I remember the re-created atrocities as if from another film, which is indeed how they are presented. "Ararat" clearly comes from Egoyan's heart, and it conveys a message he urgently wants to be heard: that the world should acknowledge and be shamed that a great crime was committed against his people. The message I receive from the movie, however, is a different one: that it is difficult to know the truth of historical events, and that all reports depend on the point of view of the witness and the state of mind of those who listen to the witness. That second message is conveyed by the film, but I am not sure it presents Egoyan's intention. Perhaps this movie was so close to his heart that he was never able to stand back and get a good perspective on it--that he is as conflicted as his characters, and as confused in the face of shifting points of view. Note: In the film, Adolf Hitler is quoted discussing his plans for genocide and asking, "Who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?" The film presents this as fact, although there is enormous controversy over whether Hitler actually ever said it. Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc. 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