ftp.xmission.com/2014.06.ftp.xmission.com.tar/ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/movies/archive/v02.n400

Internet Message Format | 2003-03-21 | 50KB

From: [e-mail] (movies-digest)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: movies-digest V2 #400
Reply-To: movies-digest
Sender: [e-mail]
Errors-To: [e-mail]
Precedence: bulk


movies-digest          Friday, March 21 2003          Volume 02 : Number 400



[MV] BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE / ** (PG-13)
[MV] BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM / *** 1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] IRREVERSIBLE / *** (Not rated)
[MV] THE HUNTED / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] SPIDER / *** (R)
[MV] AGENT CODY BANKS / **1/2 (PG)
[MV] RIVERS & TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME / ***1/2 (Not rated)
[MV] WILLARD / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] Win Three Colors/Star Wars Petition
[MV] BOAT TRIP / 1/2* (R)

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

Date: 07 Mar 2003 15:15:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE / ** (PG-13)

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE / ** (PG-13)

March 7, 2003

Peter Sanderson:    Steve Martin
Charlene Morton:    Queen Latifah
Howie Rosenthal:    Eugene Levy
Mrs. Arness:    Joan Plowright
Kate:    Jean Smart
Sarah Sanderson:    Kimberly J. Brown
Georgey Sanderson:    Angus T. Jones

Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Adam Shankman. Written by
Jason Filardi. Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language, sexual
humor and drug material).

BY ROGER EBERT

I confess I expected Steve Martin and Queen Latifah to fall in love in
"Bringing Down the House." That they avoid it violates all the laws of
economical screenplay construction, since they are constantly thrown
together, they go from hate to affection, and they get drunk together one
night and tear up the living room together, which in movies of this kind is
usually the closer.

But, no, all they fall into is Newfound Respect, which, in a world of
high-performance star vehicles, is the mini-van. Eugene Levy is brought off
the bench to console the Queen, and Martin ends up back with his divorced
wife (Jean Smart), who exists only so that he can go back to her. These two
couples had better never double date, because under the table Queen and
Steve are going to have their socks up each other's pants.

Why, I asked myself, is their mutual sexual attraction disguised as
roughhouse, when they are the stars and movie convention demands that they
get it on? There isn't a shred of chemistry between Latifah and Levy (who
likes the Queen's wildness and is infatuated with her cleavage, which is
understandable but shallow--his infatuation, not her cleavage). I think it's
because the movie, co-produced by Latifah, was Making a Point, which is that
the Rich White Lawyer had better learn to Accept this Bitch on Her Own Terms
instead of Merely Caving in to Her Sex Appeal. This may be a point worth
making, but not in a comedy.

I use the word "bitch" after some hesitation, to make a point: The movie is
all about different ethnic styles of speech. It uses the B-word constantly
(along, of course, with lots of "hos"), and I argue that since the MPAA
rates the "language" PG-13, I can use it in a review. You kids under 13 who
are reading this better be getting parental guidance from a POS.

Emergency definition: POS (n., slang). Abbreviation used in teenage chat
rooms, warning person at other end: "Parent over shoulder!"

Martin plays Peter Sanderson, a high-powered lawyer with a trophy ex-wife,
who lives in a posh Los Angeles neighborhood and speaks with meticulous
precision he elevates to a kind of verbal constipation. Queen Latifah plays
Charlene Morton, who he meets in an Internet chat room, where she is
LawyerGirl.

They both misrepresent their appearances--well, all right, she's guiltier
than he is--and when they meet he's appalled to find, not a blond legal
bimbo, but a trash-talking black ex-con who wants him to handle her case.
Charlene can talk like a perfect middle-class lady, as she demonstrates, but
the movie's point of pride is that she shouldn't have to. Peter can also
talk like a black street dude, sort of. Maybe he learned it from his kids'
rap records.

The movie's conceit is that Peter keeps throwing Charlene out and she keeps
coming back, because she's determined to prove her legal innocence. She
breaks into his house, throws wild parties, embarrasses him at his club, and
so on, until a magic night when she gets him drinking and dancing, plants
his hands squarely on what Russ Meyer used to rhapsodically refer to as
garbanzos, and breaks down his inhibitions. At this point--what? Wild
nuzzling, rapturous caresses, shredded knickers, wild goat cries in the
night? Peter takes her case, that's what, while Eugene Levy crawls out of
his eyebrows and joins the tag-team.

This is all wrong. It violates the immortal Stewart/Reagan principle: Steve
Martin for Latifah, Eugene Levy for best friend. A comedy is not allowed to
end with the couples incorrectly paired. It goes against the deeply
traditional requirements of the audience. Here is a movie that ignores the
Model Airplane Rule: First, make sure you have taken all of the pieces out
of the box, then line them up in the order in which they will be needed.
"Bringing Down the House" is glued together with one of the wings treated
like a piece of tail.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:27 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM / *** 1/2 (PG-13)

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM / *** 1/2 (PG-13)

March 12, 2003

Jesminder:    Parminder K. Nagra
Juliette:    Keira Knightley
Joe:    Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Mr. Bhamra:    Anupam Kher
Mrs. Bhamra:    Shaheen Khan
Pinky:    Archie Panjabi
Mel:    Shaznay Lewis
Alan:    Frank Harper
Paula: Juliet Stevenson

Fox Searchlight presents a film directed by Gurinder Chadha. Written by
Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges and Guljit Bindra. Running time: 112 minutes.
Rated PG-13 (for language and sexual content).

BY ROGER EBERT

I saw more important films at Sundance 2003, but none more purely enjoyable
than "Bend It Like Beckham," which is just about perfect as a teenage
coming-of-age comedy. It stars a young actress of luminous appeal, it
involves sports, romance and of course her older sister's wedding, and it
has two misinformed soccer moms--one who doesn't know a thing about the game
and another who doesn't even know her daughter plays it.

The movie, set in London, tells the story of Jesminder Bjamra, known as
"Jess," who comes from a traditional Indian family. Her parents are Sikhs
who fled from Uganda to England, where her dad works at Heathrow airport.
They live in the middle-class suburb of Hounslow, under the flight path of
arriving jets, where her mother believes that Jess has two great duties in
life: to learn to prepare a complete Indian meal, and to marry a nice Indian
boy, in exactly that order.

Jess plays soccer with boys in the park. In her family's living room is a
large portrait of a Sikh spiritual leader, but above Jess's bed is her own
inspiration--the British soccer superstar David Beckham, better known to
some as Posh Spice's husband. To Beckham's portrait she confides her
innermost dream, which is to play for England. Of course a girl cannot hope
to be a soccer star, and an Indian girl should not play soccer at all, since
in her mother's mind the game consists of "displaying your bare legs to
complete strangers."

Jess is seen in the park one day by Juliette (Keira Knightley), who plays
for the Hounslow Harriers, a woman's team, and is recruited to join them.
The coach is a young Irishman named Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and it is
love at second or third sight--complicated, because Joe cannot date his
players, and Juliette has a crush on him, too.

But all of these elements make the film sound routine, and what makes it
special is the bubbling energy of the cast and the warm joy with which
Gurinder Chadha, the director and co-writer, tells her story. I am the first
to admit that Gurinder Chadha is not a name on everybody's lips, but this is
her third film and I can promise you she has an unfailing instinct for human
comedy that makes you feel good and laugh out loud.

Her previous film was the wonderful "What's Cooking," about four American
ethnic families (African American, Latino, Jewish and Vietnamese) all
preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, while their younger generations
are connected in unsuspected ways. There is an emerging genre of comedies
about second- and third-generation young people breaking loose from
traditional parents ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is the most spectacular
example), and I've seen these rite-of-entry comedies by directors with
Filipino, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Iranian and Korean backgrounds, and even
one, "Mississippi Masala," where Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury
played two such characters whose stories meet.

"Bend It Like Beckham," which adds a British flavor to its London Metroland
masala, is good not because it is blindingly original but because it is
flawless in executing what is, after all, a dependable formula. The parents
must be strict and traditional, but also loving and funny, and Mr. and Mrs.
Bhamra (Anupam Kher and Shaheen Khan) are classic examples of the type. So
is Juliette's mother, Paula (the wry, funny British star Juliet Stevenson),
who tries to talk her tomboy daughter into Wonderbras, and spends most of
the movie fearing that a girl who doesn't want to wear one must be a
lesbian. ("There's a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one without a
boyfriend.") The editing by Justin Krish gets laughs all on its own with the
precision that it uses to cut to reaction shots as the parents absorb one
surprise after another.

Jess, played by Parminder K. Nagra, is a physically exuberant girl whose
love of soccer crosses over into a love of life. She runs onto the field as
if simply at play, she does cartwheels after scoring goals, and although she
deceives her parents about her soccer dreams, she loves them and understands
their point of view. Her father, who played cricket in Uganda but was
discriminated against by the local London club, still bears deep wounds, but
"things are different now," Jess tells him, and there is the obligatory
scene where he sneaks into the crowd at a match to see for himself.

Can there be an Indian comedy without a wedding? "Monsoon Wedding" is the
great example, and here, too, we get the loving preparation of food, the
exuberant explosion of music, and the backstage drama. All ethnic comedies
feature scenes that make you want to leave the theater and immediately start
eating, and "Bend It Like Beckham" may inspire some of its fans to make
Indian friends simply so they can be invited over for dinner.

The movie's values run deep. It understands that for Jess' generation soccer
is not about displaying bare legs (Jess has another reason to be shy about
that), but it also understands the hopes and ambitions of parents--and,
crucially, so does Jess, who handles the tentative romance with her coach in
a way that combines tenderness with common sense. A closing scene at the
airport, which in a lesser movie would have simply hammered out a happy
ending, shows her tact and love.

Like all good movies, "Bend It Like Beckham" crosses over to wide audiences.
It's being promoted in the magazines and on the cable channels that teenage
girls follow, but recently we showed it on our Ebert & Roeper Film
Festival at Sea, to an audience that ranged in age from 7 to 81, with a
50ish median, and it was a huge success. For that matter, the hip Sundance
audience, dressed in black and clutching cell phones and cappuccinos, loved
it, too. And why not, since its characters and sensibility are so abundantly
lovable.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:18 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] IRREVERSIBLE / *** (Not rated)

IRREVERSIBLE / *** (Not rated)

March 14, 2003

Alex:     Monica Bellucci
Marcus:     Vincent Cassel
Pierre:     Albert Dupontel
Philippe    : Philippe Nahon
Le Tenia:     Jo Prestia
Stephane:     Stephane Drouot
Mourad:     Mourad Khima

Lions Gate Films presents a film written and directed by Gaspar Noe. Running
time: 99 minutes. No MPAA rating (extreme and disturbing violence, scenes of
rape, sexual encounters). In French with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Irreversible" is a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it
unwatchable.

The camera looks on unflinchingly as a woman is raped and beaten for several
long, unrelenting minutes, and as a man has his face pounded in with a fire
extinguisher, in an attack that continues until after he is apparently dead.
That the movie has a serious purpose is to its credit but makes it no more
bearable. Some of the critics at the screening walked out, but I stayed,
sometimes closing my eyes, and now I will try to tell you why I think the
writer and director, Gaspar Noe, made the film in this way.

First, above all, and crucially, the story is told backward. Two other films
have famously used that chronology: Harold Pinter's "Betrayal," the story of
a love affair that ends (begins) in treachery, and Christopher Nolan's
"Memento" (2000), which begins with the solution to a murder and tracks
backward to its origin. Of "Betrayal," I wrote that a sad love story would
be even more tragic if you could see into the future, so that even this
joyous moment, this kiss, was in the shadow of eventual despair.

Now consider "Irreversible." If it were told in chronological order, we
would meet a couple very much in love: Alex (Monica Bellucci) and Marcus
(Vincent Cassel). In a movie that is frank and free about nudity and sex, we
see them relaxed and playful in bed, having sex and sharing time. Bellucci
and Cassel were married in real life at the time the film was made and are
at ease with each other.

Then we would see them at a party, Alex wearing a dress that makes little
mystery of her perfect breasts. We would see a man hitting on her. We would
hear it asked how a man could let his lover go out in public dressed like
that: Does he like to watch as men grow interested? We would meet Marcus'
best friend, Pierre (Albert Dupontel), who himself was once a lover of Alex.

Then we would follow Alex as she walks alone into a subway tunnel, on a
quick errand that turns tragic when she is accosted by Le Tenia (Jo
Prestia), a pimp who brutally and mercilessly rapes and beats her for what
seems like an eternity, in a stationary-camera shot that goes on and on and
never cuts away.

And then we would follow Marcus and Pierre in a search for La Tenia, which
leads to an S-M club named the Rectum, where La Tenia is finally discovered
and beaten brutally, again in a shot that continues mercilessly, this time
with a hand-held camera that seems to participate in the beating.

As I said, for most people, unwatchable. Now consider what happens if you
reverse the chronology, so that the film begins with shots of La Tenia being
removed from the night club and tracks back through time to the warm and
playful romance of the bedroom scenes. There are several ways in which this
technique produces a fundamentally different film:

1. The film doesn't build up to violence and sex as its payoff, as
pornography would. It begins with its two violent scenes, showing us the
very worst immediately and then tracking back into lives that are about to
be forever altered.

2. It creates a different kind of interest in those earlier scenes, which
are foreshadowed for us but not for the characters. When Alex and Marcus
caress and talk, we realize what a slender thread all happiness depends on.
To know the future would not be a blessing but a curse. Life would be
unlivable without the innocence of our ignorance. áá

3. Revenge precedes violation. The rapist is savagely punished before he
commits his crime. At the same time, and this is significant, Marcus is the
violent monster of the opening scenes, and La Tenia is a victim whose crime
has not yet been seen (although we already know Alex has been assaulted).

4. The party scenes, and the revealing dress, are seen in hindsight as a
risk that should not have been taken. Instead of making Alex look sexy and
attractive, they make her look vulnerable and in danger. While it is true
that a woman should be able to dress as she pleases, it is not always wise.

5. We know by the time we see Alex at the party, and earlier in bed, that
she is not simply a sex object or a romantic partner, but a fierce woman who
fights the rapist for every second of the rape. Who uses every tactic at her
command to stop him. Who loses but does not surrender. It makes her
sweetness and warmth much richer when we realize what darker weathers she
harbors. This woman is not simply a sensuous being, as women so often simply
are in the movies, but a fighter with a fierce survival instinct.

The fact is, the reverse chronology makes "Irreversible" a film that
structurally argues against rape and violence, while ordinary chronology
would lead us down a seductive narrative path toward a shocking,
exploitative payoff. By placing the ugliness at the beginning, Gaspar Noe
forces us to think seriously about the sexual violence involved. The movie
does not end with rape as its climax and send us out of the theater as if
something had been communicated. It starts with it, and asks us to sit there
for another hour and process our thoughts. It is therefore moral - at a
structural level.

As I said twice and will repeat again, most people will not want to see the
film at all. It is so violent, it shows such cruelty, that it is a test most
people will not want to endure. But it is unflinchingly honest about the
crime of rape. It does not exploit. It does not pander. It has been said
that no matter what it pretends, pornography argues for what it shows.
"Irreversible" is not pornography.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:23 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE HUNTED / ***1/2 (R)

THE HUNTED / ***1/2 (R)

March 14, 2003

L.T. Bonham:    Tommy Lee Jones
Aaron Hallam:    Benicio Del Toro
Abby Durrell:    Connie Nielsen
Loretta Kravitz:    Jenna Boyd
Irene Kravitz:    Leslie Stefanson
Crumley:    Robert Blanche

Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by William Friedkin. Written by
David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths and Art Monterastelli. Running time: 94
minutes. Rated R (for strong bloody violence and some language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Hunted" is a pure and rather inspired example of the one-on-one chase
movie. Like "The Fugitive," which also starred Tommy Lee Jones, it's about
one man pursuing another more or less nonstop for the entire film. Walking
in, I thought I knew what to expect, but i didn't anticipate how William
Friedkin would jolt me with the immediate urgency of the action. This is not
an arm's-length chase picture, but a close physical duel between its two
main characters.

Jones plays L.T. Bonham, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army who trains
elite forces to stalk, track, hunt and kill. His men learn how to make
weapons out of shards of rock, and forge knives from scrap metal. In a
sequence proving we haven't seen everything yet, they learn how to kill an
enemy by the numbers--leg artery, heart, neck, lung. That Jones can make
this training seem real goes without saying; he has an understated,
minimalist acting style that implies he's been teaching the class for a long
time.

One of his students is Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro), who fought in Kosovo
in 1999 and had experiences there that warped him ("his battle stress has
gone so deep it is part of his personality"). Back home in Oregon, offended
by hunters using telescopic sights, he claims four victims--"those hunters
were filleted like deer." Bonham recognizes the style and goes into the
woods after him ("If I'm not back in two days, that will mean I'm dead").

Hallam's stress syndrome has made him into a radical defender of animal
rights; he talks about chickens on assembly lines, and asks one cop how he'd
feel if a higher life form were harvesting mankind. Of course, in killing
the hunters, he has promoted himself to that superior lifeform, but this is
not a movie about debate points. It is a chase.

No modern director is more identified with chases that Friedkin, whose "The
French Connection" and "To Live and Die in L.A." set the standard. Here the
whole movie is a chase, sometimes at a crawl, as when Hallam drives a stolen
car directly into a traffic jam. What makes the movie fresh is that it
doesn't stand back and regard its pursuit as an exercise, but stays very
close to the characters and focuses on the actual physical reality of their
experience.

Consider an early hand-to-hand combat between Bonham and Hallam. We've seen
so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that
we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free
speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their
arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides.
They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They
both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't
scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the
immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting.

The chase sequences--through Oregon forests and city streets, on highways
and bridges--are also reality-oriented. The cinematography, by the great
Caleb Deschanel ("The Right Stuff") buries itself in the reality of the
locations. The forests are wet and green, muddy and detailed. The leaves are
not scenery but right in front of our faces, to be brushed aside. Running,
hiding, stalking, the two men get dirty and tired and gasp for breath. We
feel their physical effort; this isn't one of those movies where shirts are
dry again in the next scene, and the hero has the breath for long speeches.

"The Hunted" requires its skilled actors. Ordinary action stars would not
do. The screenplay, by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths and Art
Monterastelli, has a kind of minimalist clarity, in which nobody talks too
much and everything depends on tone. Notice scenes where Del Toro is
interrogated by other law officials. He doesn't give us the usual hostile,
aggressive cliches, but seems to be trying to explain himself from a place
so deep he can't make it real to outsiders. This man doesn't kill out of
rage but out of sorrow.

There are moments when Friedkin lays it on a little thick. The early how-to
sequence, where Bonham's trainees learn how to make weapons from scratch,
implies there will be a later sequence where they need to. Fair enough. But
would Hallam, in the heat of a chase, have the time to build a fire from
shavings, heat an iron rod, and hammer it into a knife? Even if Bonham
cooperates by meanwhile pausing to chip his own flint weapon? Maybe not, or
maybe the two hunters are ritualistically agreeing to face each other using
only these tools of their trade. The resulting knife fight, which benefits
from the earlier knife training sequence, is physical action of a high
order.

There are other characters in the movie, other relationships. A woman with a
child, who Hallam visits (she likes him but is a little afraid). A woman who
is an FBI field officer. Various cops. They add background and atmosphere,
but "The Hunted" is about two hard-working men who are good at their jobs,
although only one can be the best.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SPIDER / *** (R)

SPIDER / *** (R)

March 14, 2003

Dennis 'Spider' Cleg:    Ralph Fiennes
Mrs. Cleg:    Miranda Richardson
Bill Cleg:    Gabriel Byrne
Mrs. Wilkinson:    Lynn Redgrave
Boy Spider:    Bradley Hall
Terrence:    John Neville
Freddy:    Gary Reineke
John:    Philip Craig
Gladys:    Sara Stockbridge

Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by David Cronenberg. Written
by Patrick McGrath, based on his novel. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R
(for sexuality, brief violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has
overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them ...

So Ahab is described in Moby Dick. The description matches Dennis Cleg, the
subject (I hesitate to say "hero") of David Cronenberg's "Spider." Played by
Ralph Fiennes, he is a man eaten away by a lifetime of inner torment; there
is not one ounce on his frame that is not needed to support his suffering.
Fiennes, so jolly as J. Lo's boyfriend in "Maid in Manhattan," looks here
like a refugee from the slums of hell.

We see him as the last man off a train to London, muttering to himself,
picking up stray bits from the sidewalk, staring out through blank,
uncomprehending eyes. He finds a boarding house in a cheerless district and
is shown to a barren room by the gruff landlady (Lynn Redgrave). In the
lounge, he meets an old man who explains kindly that the house has a
"curious character, but one grows used to it after a few years."

This is a halfway house, we learn, and Spider has just been released from a
mental institution. In the morning, the landlady bursts into his room
without knocking--just like a mother, we think, and, indeed, later he will
confuse her with his stepmother. For that matter, his mother, his stepmother
and an alternate version of the landlady are all played by the same actress
(Miranda Richardson); we are meant to understand that her looming presence
fills every part of his mind that is reserved for women.

The movie is based on an early novel by Patrick McGrath. It enters into the
subjective mind of "Spider" Cleg so completely that it's impossible to be
sure what is real and what is not. We see everything through Spider's eyes,
and he is not a reliable witness. He hardly seems aware of the present, so
traumatized is he by the past. Whether they are trustworthy or not, his
childhood memories are the landscape in which he wanders.

In flashbacks, we meet his father, Bill Cleg (Gabriel Byrne), and mother
(Richardson). Then we see his father making a rendezvous in a garden shed
with Yvonne (also Richardson), a tramp from the pub. The mother discovers
them there, is murdered with a spade and buried right then and there in the
garden, with the little boy witnessing everything. Yvonne moves in, and at
one point tells young Dennis, "Yes, it's true he murdered your mother. Try
and think of me as your mother now."

Why are the two characters played by the same actress? Is this an artistic
decision, or a clue to Spider's mental state? We cannot tell for sure,
because there is almost nothing in his life that Spider knows for sure. He
is adrift in fear. Fiennes plays the character as a man who wants to take
back every step, reconsider every word, question every decision.

There is a younger version of the character, Spider as a boy, played by
Bradley Hall. He is solemn and wide-eyed, is beaten with a belt at one
point, has a childhood that functions as an open wound. We understand that
this boy is the most important inhabitant of the older Spider's gaunt and
wasted body.

The movie is well made and acted, but it lacks dimension because it
essentially has only one character, and he lacks dimension. We watch him and
perhaps care for him, but we cannot identify with him because he is no
longer capable of change and decision. He has long since stopped trying to
tell apart his layers of memory, nightmare, experience and fantasy.

He is lost and adrift. He wanders through memories, lost and sad, and we
wander after him, knowing, somehow, that Spider is not going to get
better--and that if he does, that would simply mean the loss of his paranoid
fantasies, which would leave him with nothing. Sometimes people hold onto
illnesses because they are defined by them, given distinction, made real.
There seems to be no sense in which Spider could engage the world on terms
that would make him any happier.

There are three considerable artists at work here: Cronenberg, Fiennes and
Richardson. They are at the service of a novelist who often writes of
grotesque and melancholy characters; he is Britain's modern master of the
gothic. His Spider Cleg lives in a closed system, like one of those sealed
glass globes where little plants and tiny marine organisms trade their
energy back and forth indefinitely. In Spider's globe, he feeds on his pain
and it feeds in him. We feel that this exchange will go on and on, whether
we watch or not. The details of the film and of the performances are
meticulously realized; there is a reward in seeing artists working so well.
But the story has no entry or exit, and is cold, sad and hopeless.
Afterward, I feel more admiration than gratitude.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:17 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] AGENT CODY BANKS / **1/2 (PG)

AGENT CODY BANKS / **1/2 (PG)

March 14, 2003

Cody Banks:    Frankie Muniz
Natalie Connors:    Hilary Duff
Ronica Miles:     Angie Harmon
Mrs. Banks:    Cynthia Stevenson
Dr. Connors:    Martin Donovan

MGM presents a film directed by Harald Zwart. Written by Zack Stentz, Ashley
Edward Miller, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Based on a story by
Jeffrey Jurgensen. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG (for action violence,
mild language and some sensual content). Opening today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

Imagine James Bond as a suburban American 15-year-old, and you have "Agent
Cody Banks," a high-speed, high-tech kiddie thriller that's kinda cute but
sorta relentless. Frankie Muniz stars as Cody, whose martial arts skills,
skateboarding, ceiling-walking and extreme snowboarding are all the more
remarkable when you consider that he goes into action before the CIA has
time to give him much more than what, in the Bond pictures, is the Q routine
with the neat gizmos.

Frankie lives with his parents (Cynthia Stevenson and Daniel Roebuck), who
mean well but are so inattentive they don't notice their son has become a
spy with international missions.

His CIA handler (Angie Harmon, low-cut and sexy) wants him to befriend a
classmate named Natalie Connors (Hilary Duff, from "Lizzie McGuire").
Frankie is, alas, so tongue-tied around girls that his grade-school brother
can boast, "Cody's almost 16 and I've had twice as many dates as he has."

Cody fights back ("Sitting in a treehouse doesn't count"), but the kid is
serene ("It does when you're playing doctor").

Natalie attends the ultra-exclusive William Donovan Prep School, no doubt
named for the famous World War II spy "Wild Bill" Donovan, and Frankie
transfers there, uses his karate skills to silence hecklers and ends up on a
mission to liberate Natalie's father, Dr. Connors (Martin Donovan), from the
clutches of the evil masterminds Brinkman and Molay (Ian McShane and Arnold
Vosloo), who want to (we know this part by heart) Attain World Domination by
using the doctor's inventions--microscopic Nanobots that can eat through
anything.

The movie imitates its Bond origins with a lot of neat toys. Cody is given a
BMW skateboard that has unsuspected versatility, and a jet-powered
snowboard, and a sports car, and X-ray glasses (Hello, Angie Harmon!) and a
watch that will send electricity through your enemies, although I think (I'm
not sure about this) you should not be wearing it yourself at the time.

The set design includes the scientist's laboratory in underground World
Domination Headquarters--which includes, as students of Ebert's Bigger
Little Movie Glossary will not be surprised to learn, commodious and
well-lighted overhead air ducts so that Cody can position himself in comfort
directly above all important conversations. There are also CIA regional
headquarters, with a conference table that looks designed by Captain Nemo in
a nightmare. We learn that the CIA runs summer camps to train kids to become
junior spies, although why Harmon, who seems to be playing Young Mrs.
Robinson, is their handler is hard to explain--maybe she's there for the
dads, in the movie and in the audience.

The movie will be compared with the two "Spy Kids" pictures, and looks more
expensive and high-tech but isn't as much fun. It has a lot of skill and
energy, but its wit is more predictable and less delightful. It's a
well-made movie, to be sure, and will probably entertain its target
audience, but its target audience is probably not reading this review, and
you (for whatever reason) are. The difference is, I could look you in the
eye and recommend you go see the "Spy Kids" movies, but this one, if you're
not a kid, I don't think so.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:20 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RIVERS & TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME / ***1/2 (Not rated)

RIVERS & TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME / ***1/2 (Not rated)

March 14, 2003

Roxie Releasing presents a documentary directed by Thomas Riedel-sheimer.
Running time: 90 minutes. No MPAA rating (no objectionable content).

BY ROGER EBERT

Have you ever watched--no, better, have you ever been a young child intent
on building something out of the materials at hand in the woods, or by a
stream, or at the beach? Have you seen the happiness of an adult joining
kids and slowly slipping out of adulthood and into the absorbing process of
this ... and now ... and over here ... and build this up ... and it should
go like this?

The artist Andy Goldsworthy lives in that world of making things. They have
no names, they are Things. He brings order to leaves or twigs or icicles and
then surrenders them to the process of nature. He will kneel for hours by
the oceanside, creating a cairn of stones that balances precariously, the
weight on the top holding the sides in place, and then the tide will come in
and wash away the sand beneath, and the cairn will collapse, as it must, as
it should.

"The very thing that brought the thing to be is the thing that will cause
its death," Goldsworthy explains, as his elegant, spiraled constructions
once again become random piles of stones on the beach. As with Andy's
stones, so with our lives.

"Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time" is a documentary that
opened in San Francisco in mid-2002 and just kept running, moving from one
theater to another, finding its audience not so much through word of mouth
as through hand on elbow, as friends steered friends into the theater,
telling them that this was a movie they had to see. I started getting
e-mails about it months ago. Had I seen it? I hadn't even heard of it.

It is a film about a man wholly absorbed in the moment. He wanders woods and
riverbanks, finding materials and playing with them, fitting them together,
piling them up, weaving them, creating beautiful arrangements that he
photographs before they return to chaos. He knows that you can warm the end
of an icicle just enough to make it start to melt, and then hold it against
another icicle, and it will stick. With that knowledge, he makes an ice
sculpture, and then it melts in the sun and is over.

Some of his constructions are of magical beauty, as if left behind by beings
who disappeared before the dawn. He finds a way to arrange twigs in a kind
of web. He makes a spiral of rocks that fans out from a small base and then
closes in again, a weight on top holding it together. This is not easy, and
he gives us pointers: "Top control can be the death of a work."

Often Andy will be ... almost there ... right on the edge ... holding his
breath as one last piece goes into place ... and then the whole construction
will collapse, and he will look deflated, defeated, for a moment ("Damn!"),
and then start again: "When I build something, I often take it to the very
edge of its collapse, and that's a very beautiful balance."

His art needs no explanation. We go into modern art galleries and find work
we cannot comprehend as art. We see Damien Hurst's sheep, cut down the
middle and embedded in plastic, and we cannot understand how it won the
Turner Prize (forgetting that no one thought Turner was making art, either).
We suppose that Concepts and Statements are involved.

But with Andy Goldsworthy, not one word of explanation is necessary, because
every single one of us has made something like his art. We have piled stones
or made architectural constructions out of sand, or played Pick-Up Stix, and
we know exactly what he is trying to do--and why. Yes, why, because his art
takes him into that Zone where time drops away and we forget our left-brain
concerns and are utterly absorbed by whether this ... could go like this ...
without the whole thing falling apart.

The documentary, directed, photographed and edited by Thomas Riedelsheimer,
a German filmmaker, goes home with Goldsworthy to Penpont, Scotland, where
we see him spending some time with his wife and kids. It follows him to a
museum in the South of France, and to an old stone wall in Canada that he
wants to rebuild in his own way. It visits with him old stone markers high
in mountains, built by early travelers to mark the path.

And it offers extraordinary beauty. We watch as he smashes stones to release
their cyan content and uses that bright-red dye to make spectacular patterns
in the currents and whirlpools of streams. We see a long rope of linked
leaves, bright green, uncoil as it floats downstream. Before, we saw only
the surface of the water, but now the movement of the leaves reveals its
current and structure. What a happy man. Watching this movie is like
daydreaming.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:25 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WILLARD / **1/2 (PG-13)

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

March 14, 2003

Willard Stiles:    Crispin Glover
Henrietta Stiles:    Jackie Burroughs
Frank Martin:    R. Lee Ermey
Cathryn:    Laura Elena Harring
Detective Boxer:    David Parker

New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Glen Morgan. Running
time: 95 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for terror/violence, some sexual content and
language).

BY ROGER EBERT

You never know what a rat is going to do next, which is one of the big
problems with rats. In "Willard," you mostly do know what the rats are going
to do next, which is a big problem with the film. That's because Willard is
able to marshal his rats into disciplined groups that scurry off on missions
on his behalf; he is the Dr. Dolittle of pest control.

"Willard" is a remake of the 1971 film, which was a surprise hit at the box
office. My explanation at the time: People had been waiting a long time to
see Ernest Borgnine eaten by rats and weren't about to miss the opportunity.
The new film looks better, moves faster and is more artistic than the
original, but it doesn't work as a horror film--and since it is a horror
film, that's fatal. It has attitude and a look, but the rats aren't scary.

Consider an early scene where Willard (Crispin Glover) goes down in the
cellar after his mother complains of rat infestation. The fuse box blows and
he's down to a flashlight, and this should be a formula for a scary scene
(remember Ellen Burstyn in the attic with a flashlight in "The Exorcist").
But the scene isn't frightening--ever. The blowing of the fuse is scarier
than anything else that happens in the basement.

The plot is essentially a remake of the earlier "Willard," but with elements
suggesting it is a sequel. A portrait that hangs in the family home, for
example, shows Bruce Davison as Willard's father--and Davison, of course,
was the original Willard. So hold on. If that Willard was this Willard's
father, then that means that this Willard's mother (Jackie Burroughs) was
that Willard's wife and has become a shrew just like her mother-in-law, and
young Willard still works for an evil man named Mr. Martin (R. Lee Ermey),
which was the Borgnine character's name, so he must be Martin Jr. In the new
movie, Willard's mom complains about rats in the cellar and Mr. Martin
insults Willard and threatens his job, and the sins of the parents are
visited on the sequel.

The best thing in the movie is Crispin Glover's performance. He affects
dark, sunken eyes, and a slight stoop, and is very pale, and has one of
those haircuts that shouts out: Look how gothic and miserable I am. There is
real wit in the performance. And wit, too, in R. Lee Ermey's performance as
the boss, which draws heavily on Ermey's real-life experience as a drill
sergeant.

The human actors are OK, but the rodent actors (some real, some special
effects) are like a prop that turns up on demand and behaves (or misbehaves)
flawlessly. A few of the rats pop out: Socrates, Willard's choice for
leader, and Ben, who is Ben's choice for leader. Ben is a very big rat
(played, according to ominous information I found on the Web, "by an animal
that is not a rat").

Laura Elena Harring, the brunet sex bomb from "Mulholland Drive," turns up
as a worker in Willard's office who worries about him and even comes to his
home to see if he's all right. My theory about why she likes him: He is the
only man in a 100-mile radius who has never tried to pick her up. Willard is
too morose and inward and Anthony Perkinsy. If they'd reinvented the movie
as a character study, not so much about the rats as about Willard, they
might have come up with something. Here the rats simply sweep across the
screen in an animated tide, and instead of thinking, Eek! Rats!, we're
thinking about how it was done. That's not what you're supposed to be
thinking about during a horror movie.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 05:20:18 -0500
From: "DVD Movie Central" <[e-mail]>
Subject: [MV] Win Three Colors/Star Wars Petition

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

- ------=_NextPart_000_005F_01C2EF69.906F1A00
Content-Type: text/plain;
    charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Greetings, friends!

Our new contest is up and running today, and we've got a good one for =
you this time...two lucky winners will take home Miramax's excellent new =
Three Colors Trilogy box set!

Just go to www.dvdmoviecentral.com and click on "Feel Lucky?" on the =
above nav bar for details and to get your entries in.

And while you're there, for those of you who are disappointed in George =
Lucas' decision NOT to release the original Star Wars Trilogy to DVD in =
their original form (ONLY the enhanced special editions), take a moment =
to scroll down and find the Star Wars petition button on the left side.  =
Take a moment to sign it...it's quick and easy and secure.  DMC gets =
nothing in return for this, of course...just a public service to DVD =
fans.

Stay safe, and thanks for reading DMC!

Mike J
DVD Movie Central
www.dvdmoviecentral.com=20

- ------=_NextPart_000_005F_01C2EF69.906F1A00
Content-Type: text/html;
    charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1" =
http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
<META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2919.6307" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Greetings, friends!<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Our new contest is up and running =
today, and we've=20
got a good one for you this time...two lucky winners will take home =
Miramax's=20
excellent new Three Colors Trilogy box set!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Just go to <A=20
href=3D"http://www.dvdmoviecentral.com">www.dvdmoviecentral.com</A> and =
click on=20
"Feel Lucky?" on the above nav bar for details and to get your entries=20
in.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>And while you're there, for those of =
you who are=20
disappointed in George Lucas' decision NOT to release the original Star =
Wars=20
Trilogy to DVD in their original form (ONLY the enhanced special =
editions), take=20
a moment to scroll down and find the Star Wars petition button on the =
left=20
side.  Take a moment to sign it...it's quick and easy and=20
secure.  DMC gets nothing in return for this, of course...just a =
public=20
service to DVD fans.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Stay safe, and thanks for reading =
DMC!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Mike J</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>DVD Movie Central</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2><A=20
href=3D"http://www.dvdmoviecentral.com">www.dvdmoviecentral.com</A>=20
</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>

- ------=_NextPart_000_005F_01C2EF69.906F1A00--


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

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

Date: 22 Mar 2003 02:55:04 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BOAT TRIP / 1/2* (R)

BOAT TRIP / 1/2* (R)

March 21, 2003

Jerry:    Cuba Gooding Jr.
Nick:        Horatio Sanz
Felicia:        Vivica A. Fox
Gabriela:        Roselyn Sanchez
Hector:        Maurice Godin
Sonja:        Lin Shaye
Inga:    Victoria Silvstedt
Malcolm:    Richard Roundtree

Artisan Entertainment presents a film directed by Mort Nathan. Written by
Nathan and William Bigelow. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated R (for strong
sexual content, language and some drug material).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Boat Trip" arrives preceded by publicity saying many homosexuals have been
outraged by the film. Now that it's in theaters, everybody else has a chance
to join them. Not that the film is outrageous. That would be asking too
much. It is dim-witted, unfunny, too shallow to be offensive, and way too
conventional to use all of those people standing around in the background
wearing leather and chains and waiting hopefully for their cues. This is a
movie made for nobody, about nothing.

The premise: Jerry (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is depressed after being dumped by his
girl (Vivica A. Fox). His best buddy Nick (Horatio Sanz) cheers him up:
They'll take a cruise together. Nick has heard that the ships are jammed
with lonely women. But they offend a travel agent, who books them on a
cruise of gay men, ho ho.

Well, it could be funny. Different characters in a different story with more
wit and insight might have done the trick. But "Boat Trip" requires its
heroes to be so unobservant that it takes them hours to even figure out it's
a gay cruise. And then they go into heterosexual panic mode, until the
profoundly conventional screenplay supplies the only possible outcome: The
sidekick discovers that he's gay, and the hero discovers a sexy woman on
board and falls in love with her.

Her name is Gabriela (Roselyn Sanchez), and despite the fact that she's the
choreographer on a gay cruise, she knows so little about gay men that she
falls for Jerry's strategy: He will pretend to be gay, so that he can get
close to her and then dramatically unveil his identity, or something. Uh,
huh. Even Hector, the cross-dressing queen in the next stateroom, knows a
straight when he sees one: "You want to convince people you are gay, and you
don't know the words to 'I Will Survive'?"

The gays protesting the movie say it deals in stereotypes. So it does, but
then again, so does the annual gay parade, and so do many gay nightclubs,
where role-playing is part of the scene. Yes, there are transvestites and
leather guys and muscle boys on the cruise, but there are also more
conventional types, like Nick's poker-playing buddies. The one ray of wit in
the entire film is provided by Roger Moore, as a homosexual man who calmly
wanders through the plot dispensing sanity, as when, at the bar, he listens
to the music and sighs, "Why do they always play Liza?"

One of the movie's problems is a disconnect between various levels of
reality. Some of the scenes play as if they are intended to be realistic.
Then Jerry or Nick go into hysterics of overacting. Then Jerry attempts to
signal a helicopter to rescue him, and shoots it down with a flare gun. Then
it turns out to be carrying the Swedish Sun-Tanning Team, on its way to the
Hawaiian Tropics finals. Then Jerry asks Gabriela to describe her oral sex
technique, which she does so with the accuracy and detail of a porn film,
and then Jerry--but that pathetic moment you will have to witness for
yourself. Or maybe you will not.

Note: The credit cookies weren't very funny, either, but at least they kept
me in the theater long enough to notice the credits for the film's Greek
Support Team.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

End of movies-digest V2 #400
****************************

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