Amazing film about a group of kids in a poor small town who try to cover up a serious mistake by one of them. Extraordinary portrait of children, and how they know a town, it's hidden places, and some of its secrets, and how they try to manage a crisis without real adult supervision. Beautifully acted and filmed.
CANDACE EVANOFSKI, DONALD HOLDEN, DAMIAN JEWAN LEE, CURTIS COTTON III, RACHAEL HANDY
On May 6, 1828, a strange man appeared on the streets of Nuremberg. His name was Kasper Hauser and he could not speak or understand language and he seemed completely ignorant of even the simplest rules of social interaction. He was adopted into a local family and taught the rudiments of language and behavior, and eventually he revealled that he had been kept locked up for his entire life until then, until he mysteriously found himself in the Nuremberg town square. The story created a sensation, but the most shocking was yet to come. Hauser was found bleeding and wounded after a mysterious attack by unknown assailants. Eventually he was found murdered. This is one of Herzog's rawest, most energetic films, featuring a rivetting performance by Bruno S., who suffered from mental illnesses himself.
BRUNO S, WALTER LADENGAST, BRIGITTE MIRA, MICHAEL KROECHER
Entertaining if somewhat lumpy comedy about aging gay couple. It's strength is the nonchalant approach it takes to the gayness of the principles, and to their relationship. And Nathan Lane, who has almost become a type-- sharp, funny, vulnerable, and entertaining. That said, the plot isn't exactly original and occasionally reminds you of a sitcom.
ROBIN WILLIAMS, GENE HACKMAN, NATHAN LANE, DIANNE WIEST, CALISTA FLOCKHART, HANK AZARIA
Where is this film going? Starts out as a social document on the dangers of environmental poisons, but ends up exploring the psychological state of a woman who might just be a little paranoid nd irrational. Mind-blowing, but not entirely successful. CArol White (Julianne Moore) breaks out in nose-bleeds and seizures and various doctors and psychiatrists can't seem to help her. Then she catches an infomercial for "Wrenwood", a retreat for people with environmental illnesses. Clearly, Wrenwood is a scam run by Peter Dunning, and Carol retreats even more, within the retreat, until she is quite isolated from everyone and everything. What does it mean? I'm not sure, and it seems most critics are not sure. It's an intriguing failure of a film.
JULIANNE MOORE, PETER FRIEDMAN, XANDER BERKELEY, SUSAN NORMAN
Todd Solondz took some heat for the way his unusual characters in "Happiness" were portrayed. Was he exploring unusual indiosyncracies of some exotic personalities? Or was he exploiting people's fascination with dysfunctional humans? Exploitive? Storytelling is two movies in one. The first is about a college writing student who describes a rather brutal affair with her professor, and then reads the story to her class, with the professor present. Her class-mates ridicule the story, driving her to tears and she burst out-- "it happened!". The second is about a documentary film-maker doing a study of a dysfunctional family. But they don't know that they are dysfunctional. When the son who is the primary focus of the story stumbles into a screening and sees the audience roaring with knowing laughter as his comments about wanting to be a television star like Conan O'Brien, he observes that, well, the film is a hit. Fresh and imaginative and funny.
SELMA BLAIR, LEO FITZPATRICK, ROBERT WISDOM, MARIA THAYER, ANGELA GOETHALS, JOHN GOODMAN, PAUL GIAMATTI
Harrowing, disturbing, and shocking. At the behest of his grown (and sexually active) son, a middle-aged widower decides to seek a new wife by holding a fake audition for a movie that probably won't even be made. He settles on the beautiful Asami, and falls in love with her-- and she, apparently, with him. But Asami is not the innocent she appears to be. It is difficult to sort out what is meant, in this film, to be dream or illusion and what is "real", but she clearly exacts a vicious revenge on Aoyama, not necessarily for the particular deceit involved in their relationship, as for the deceits practised by all men on all women. Is it over the top? Gratuitous? I was undecided. Without a doubt, one of the most shocking conclusions of any film I have ever seen. Well acted and interestingly filmed, but the lighting on this VHS copy was harsh and sometimes garish.
EIHI SHIINA, RYO ISHIBASHI
Vianne Rocher moves into a small French town and opens a chocolate store. Her candies have some remarkable properties and, though she alienates some of the more repressed citizens, like the mayor, with her irreligious attitudes, her candies have a great impact on the lives of her customers. There isn't anything fresh or exciting here, let alone original or authentic. This is Hollywood does "Babette's Feast" or "Like Water for Chocolate". In fact, Chocolat is shamelessly derivative of those earlier works. The only thing missing, in fact, is the hollywood ending writ large. The happy ending-- it is "happy"-- is more low key, like Binoche's performance. Lena Olin makes an appearance as an abused wife. It's hard to figure out if this is a token sub-plot or if the entire conception of the film is so scattered. The scene that reveals more than it thought it did-- a gypsy barge is set on fire by the resident bad-guy (the abusive husband) and Binoche seizes the over-wrought moment for a scene that is so utterly false and forced that you almost turn away in embarrassment. There is not a chance that her daughter was killed in the fire and the audience knows it, which makes her over-acting all that much harder to take. Roundly disappointing.
JULIETTE BINOCHE, ALFRED MOLINA, CARRIE-ANN MOSS, JOHNNY DEPP, LENA OLIN, HUGH O'CONOR, HELENE CARDONA
Remembered primarily as Natalie Portman's precocious debut, Leon is a self-sufficient hit man living in New York. One day, corrupt policemen come and murder the family in the apartment next to his, while the 12-year-old daughter (Portman) is out running an errand. When she returns, in the movies only really compelling scene, she walks right by the hitmen and pretends to belong in Leon's apartment. She rings and begs him to open the door as the increasingly suspicious hit men begin to realize that one member of the family is missing. From there, it's a classic "grizzled old cynic" vs. naive waif plot-- except that Mathilda wants to become a hit man so she can seek revenge on the corrupt police officers. Leon actually does teach her his craft, and though Besson is a little coy about having a 12-year-old girl murder people on screen, he does push the envelope a little. Odd that it is acceptable to movie audiences to see an adult man teach a 12-year-old girl how to take a gun and blow someone's brains out, but, well, imagine the discomfiture if she sat on his lap and kissed him.... Well, that would be abuse right? The murder is okay, but not a potential sexual relationship. Not a great film by any stretch. Goes a little ridiculously overboard with the shooting and explosions and derring-do. But Portman is good. Not totally surprising that this is from the same director as "La Femme Nikita", a superior film.
NATALIE PORTMAN, GARY OLDMAN, DANNY AIELLO, PETER APPEL, JEAN RENO
Odd film about a young nurse who, while on her way a bank to retrieve an object from a safety deposit box, is hit by a truck and nearly dies. A passerby, who is actually casing out the bank for prospective robbery, saves her life by improvising a tracheotomy on the spot. After recovering in the hospital, she becomes convinced that fate has linked her to the young man and she sets out to find him. It is never quite clear what she has in mind, but he is clear: he wants her to go away. But, as if driven by fate, their lives become intertwined. There is one contemptible scene in this film that, in my mind, cost it severely in terms of credibility. As the police are hunting down the young man, he and Sissi end up on the roof of the psychiatric hospital she works at. They leap off the edge of the building-- in a manner that distinctly suggests suicide-- but end up landing in a pool, from which they are able to escape the police. It's a contemptible artifice because the director creates a set of expectations and conventions for his movie, and then violates them to trick the audience into believing they are going to die. We're supposed to go, "oh, wow-- there was a pool there! What a surprise!" But we're not surprised because of a clever plot twist. We're surprised because Sissi and Bodo stand there and hold hands as if making a suicide pact which is something they would never have done if they had known the pool was there and were going to take their chances with it. Maybe it works better on second viewing-- maybe not. Tykver also directed Run Lola Run with the same actress-- Franka Potente. It is a far superior film to this one, but raises a disturbing issue of whether Tykver has the variety of experience to make more interesting films in future. Both of these films deal with fate and the twisted tricks of chaos theory-- if one small thing is different, everything is different. But they both say the same thing without expanding any further on the issue. You hope he will move on to something more exotic in his next feature.
FRANKA POTENTE, BENNO FURMANN, JOACHIM KROL, LARS RUDOLPH, MELCHIOR BESLON, LUDGER PISTOR
Ever since "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", astute directors have been aware of the plastic nature of time in a movie. The director can control the movement of time, the sequence of events, the audiences consciousness of time (as when an event that is supposed to occur in 60 seconds, for example, actually unfolds over five minutes). Run Lola Run is an enthralling exercise in the manipulation of time. Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend, Manni. He is deep shit. Seems he had 100,000 marks from a drug deal in his hands and then he lost it, and his boss is probably going to kill him. He has twenty minutes to come up with the money. He tells Lola he is going to rob a store across the street but Lola urges him to wait until she gets there. She will find some way, anyway to get the money. And then she sets out, on foot, to her father, how has a high position with a German bank. And here the fun begins. When her first effort results in catastrophe, she says "stop" and time, magically, does stop. She starts again, with slight differences. On the way, numerous people-- some connected with the drug deal and some not-- are affected by her minute decisions (to dodge a car or jump over the hood? Go left or right around a gaggle of nuns?). In Run Lola Run, these diversions are more than just plot twists. The people she runs in to have their own desperations. They are also trapped in warped time, in which the sequence of events spins a web of consequence that can barely be controlled. There are subtle nuances to these diversions. Lola's father is making a profound decision about his personal life, and Lola discovers a shocking fact about him-- or doesn't, depending on a split second decision she makes as she runs to his office. This is a smart, exciting film that is one of a very, very few that is worth seeing twice.
FRANKA POTENTE, MORITZ BLEIBTREU, HERBERT KNAUP, NINA PETRI, ARMIN ROHDE, JOACHIM KROL, LUDGER PISTOR
Intriguing film in which a person suffering brain damage that has destroyed his short-term memory embarks on a search for the man responsible, and for his wife's rape and murder. He tatoos important information onto his body, and uses a Polaroid camera to identify people and remember their names. But he is also vulnerable to manipulation and deceit, and the fun in this film is in trying to sort out what is real and what is either imagined or implanted into his memory. There was a moment early on when I thought this film might make a serious study of identity and time. If you can't remember one moment to the next, what implications does that have for your consciousness of truth and history? Do those facets of relationships become irrelevant? What is commitment for a man with no memory of the previous night? But Memento backed away from these issues and stuck-- not necessarily unwisely-- to the suspenseful plot. Who is using whom? Who is Leonard Shelby's friend-- who is his enemy? Entertaining and intriguing but ultimately a little disappointing.
GUY PEARCE, CARRIE-ANNE MOSS, JOE PANTOLIANO, MARK BOONE JUNIOR, RUSS FEGA
Released just before the first installment of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Harry Potter set records (helped with ultra-wide distribution deals) for tickets and dollar sales on it's first weekend. Harry Potter is an eleven-year-old boy living a miserable life with his uncle and aunt after his parents were killed in a "car accident". In fact, they were murdered by the evil Voldemort. Harry is a "wizard", by birth and predisposition, and on his 11th birthday, Rubeus Hagrid, a very large gatekeeper, comes to bring him to the Hogwards School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he joins other boys and girls being schooled in the black arts. He makes friends with Hermione and Ronald, and together they a dark secret hidden in the cavernous school's chambers. It's no longer surprising to see superlative graphics in movies like this. The settings and special effects are generally outstanding. However, Potter has more than a little plot and dialogue as well, and brings a refreshingly unsentimental approach to the material of magic, childhood, friendship, and good vs. evil. The children (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger respectively) are quite good, and the adults, teachers and wizards and shopkeepers, are above average. Columbus directs with artful focus. That said, Potter is neither a landmark, nor a particularly outstanding film. It's good. Well done. Entertaining. But it's not a revelation like "Wizard of Oz" or even as charming as something like "Princess Bride". And-- does anyone ever buy an album of music by film composer John Williams? I would be most astonished if they did. He has composed for dozens of films, almost invariably block-busters, and his music is almost always over-bearing and monotonous.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE, RUPERT GRINT, EMILY WATSON II, JOHN CLEESE, ROBBIE COLTRANE, RICHARD GRIFFITHS, RICHARD HARRIS, IAN HART, JOHN HURT, ALAN RICKMAN, FIONA SHAW, MAGGIE SMITH, JULIE WALTERS, RICHARD BREMMER
Wildy provocative, obscene, outrageous cartoon about the children of South Park, who begin spouting obscenities after watching a Canadian movie and cause a near war when a group of parents decide to take matters into their own hands. Parker doesn't have the slightest sense of restraint here and maybe that's a strength of the movie. It barrels through some bizarre, imaginative scenes (Saddam Hussein in a love-nest with Satan comes to mine) with both ears flapping. The animation is not brilliantly evocative, but it has a sense of style to it and survives the extended length (South Park is a 20 minute TV show). The dialogue is corrisive but occasionally funny and incisive. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Doesn't mean I'm recommending it to anybody.
TREY PARKER, ISAAC HAYES, MINNIE DRIVER, ERIC IDLE
Way, way back in 1976 or so, the Monty Python troupe took a shot at overblown epic melodrama and scored a direct hit. Almost every tired and phoney convention of these films was parodied with the utmost wit, and with marvelous attention to detail. You would think, then, that wise film-makers would avoid ever again mounting such scenes, for fear that the audience would break out into laughter. Not so, of course. As if pompous historical epics like "Gladiator" and "Braveheart" were not enough, we now have "The Fellowship of the Ring", based on J.R.R. Tolkein's superior fantasy novels, about a magical ring, and the meek hobbit who tries to save the world by destroying it. I had high expectations for this film. Some of the earliest reviews were positively rapturous. It was supposed to be imaginative and cinematic in ways that "Harry Potter", the other big, big Christmas release, is not. But "Fellowship of the Ring" is really just another overblown, self-important, special effects extravaganza. It's the kind of the film that relies on loud noises and sudden flashes of light to scare you, and in which animated creatures ham it up for the camera. It's the kind of film in which the special effects crews couldn't resist the temptation (shades of the ring) to go completely overboard. If ten trolls are scary, why not a hundred? If a hundred, why not a thousand? Hell, why not a gazillion of them, creeping out of every crevice imaginable in some massive, musty, crackled cave that is itself a product of computer animation. Computer animation is a wonderful art. I am truly astonished at the monumental size of the effects, and the stunning visual appeal. But that makes this movie an effect with a good story; not a story with a good effect. The visual spendor is monumental, but not necessarily artistic. Is the story any good? I read Tolkein years ago, but I don't remember the drama being quite this self-important and pompous. When Boromir is hit by an arrow, and then continues fighting, and is hit by another arrow, and then another, and then engages with Aragorn in an extended deathbed scene, one longs for Boromir to say something like, "well, I could get better..." And one longs for Cate Blanchett(Galadriel) to announce she would love to prophecy some more but has to take a quick pee. Or for Gandalf, facing thousands of trolls, "we're screwed now." But this is a very spirtual epic. That means wholesale slaughter of sub-human species and no sex. It has to be assumed that Peter Jackson, who directed the very entertaining "Heavenly Creatures", has consciously decided to go for conventional epic here, a la "Star Wars", which is a shame, because "Star Wars" suffers from the same kind of pompous phoniness. I have no problem "believing" that an evil wizard could send hundreds of "orcas" to capture the hobbits and bring back the all-powerful ring, but I have a problem believing that these orcas would be so stupid as to come back with two hobbits instead of three, and wouldn't hang around to search for the missing hobbit who, after all, might have the all-powerful ring in his possession. You're not supposed to notice these flaws in logic and in a well-made fantasy, you don't. But either you have to believe that the evil wizard is a poor judge of performance, or that he suddenly cares so little about the ring he would send a bunch of cretins to retrieve it, or that the director, Jackson, is hoping that you stuffed your brain in the popcorn bin on your way to your seat. Maybe I'm not being a good sport. You're supposed to suspend your disbelief, of course. But that's part of a contractual arrangement with the director. You suspend your disbelief, and he keeps the plot moving along briskly and wittily enough to engage your attention. Jackson stops too often for these melodramatic scenes of brotherhood and loyalty and courage and twists your arm-- come on-- don't you believe that Sam, who can't swim, would plunge into the lake to follow Frodo? You might, if Jackson had given you a sense of desolation, or loneliness, or passion in the character. But he doesn't work from the inside out: he works from the outside in. You're supposed to do-- oh, he almost died because he wanted to follow Frodo so badly. That's loyalty... In spite of all the rave reviews, I don't buy that this film is really any better than "Braveheart" or "Gladiator" in that sense, and, in fact, might even be worse. It's only satisfying on the level of sheer visual excitement. Finally, my biggest beef with "Star Wars" was that the wises man in the universe, Yoda, actually sounds like a smug, self-important fool. What kind of advice is "Seek the power within you... use the force"? Is that wisdom? Well, you know what's going on, right? Spielberg tells you that Yoda is the smartest thing in the universe, and now he's got to make him sound smart except that Spielberg himself isn't very smart, so he has him spout off vague inanities that sound vaguely proverbial and "wise". Well, Gandalf has the same problem. He really doesn't sound all that smart. He doesn't seem to know anything that a reasonably astute viewer hasn't already thought of. He doesn't seem to have any special observations about human nature or evil or good. But he has a funny hat and a long beard. Should you see it? Sure. It's kind of fun. But don't fool yourself into thinking it's enriched your life in some meaningful way.
ELIJAH WOOD, IAN MCKELLEN, VIGGO MORTENSEN, SAM ASTIN, LIV TYLER, CATE BLANCHETT, JOHN RHYS-DAVIES, BILLY BOYD, IAN HOLM
There is a more than a little "Bonnie and Clyde" in this film, but Altman is such a distinctive stylist that you don't feel cheated by the resemblence. It's Altman's take on a caper film, on the misadventures of three interesting cons, and their relationships with thier girlfriends and families as they live life on the lam. Bowie (Keith Carradine) and Keechie (Shelley Duvall) are at the centre of the story. Their unlikely love affair begins when the three cons hideout at her gas station. As usually, Altman's film doesn't follow a predictable trajectory, and Keechie is never demeaned by her hodd, skinny physical appearance. There is a lot of authenticity in the delicate scenes between her and Bowie, and lot natural yearnings and sensibilities.
KEITH CARRADINE, SHELLEY DUVALL, JOHN SCHUCK, BERT REMSEN, LOUISE FLETCHER, ANN LATHAM, TOM SKERRITT, AL SCOTT, JOAN TEWKESBURY
Do we need another graphic illustration of how drug abuse can destroy your life? No, but do we "need" any movie, or novel, or poem? Requiem is more graphic and powerful than most, and features one of the most compelling faces in film, Jennifer Connelly, and one of the best actresses, Ellen Burstyn. It also has one of the most intriguing websites. It's about just how far people will go to satisfy urges and desires that arise from that nebulous centre of the soul, the real self, which doesn't necessarily seek what is good or pure or right, but what we need at any given moment. Sara Goldfarb (Burstyn) lives alone in her apartment, a dreary life that seems empty and pointless, until she is led to believe she has been selected to appear on a television gameshow. She begins to diet so she can fit into her best, most glamorous dress for the occasion, and resorts to diet pills to drop pounds. Her son, Harry, (Jared Leto), has stolen her television set (she pawned it back) to feed his own addiction to smack. He and his lover, Marion (Connelly) are on a vicious downward spiral of their own, and the movie shows us in graphic detail what they will do to feed their habit. And that's about it. It's awful, of course. The interest lies in the fresh personalities, and the link between Sara's addiction to television and diet pills and the false self-image she has been sold by tv, and the simpler, more direct appetites of Marion and Harry.
JENNIFER CONNELLY, ELLEN BURSTYN, JARED LETO, MARLON WAYANS, CHRISTOPHER MCDONALD, LOUISE LASSER
Alledgedly true story based on the life of George Jung who became incredibly wealthy through the drug trade until he was cashed out by friends and arrested, and is now serving a long sentence in Otisville Prison in New York State. George Jung (Depp) grows up in a troubled household. His father is a hard-working, dedicated family man, but his mother periodically runs away and then returns. His parents fight over-- get the significance here-- money. George moves to California as a teenager and gets into drugs and finds that it's easy to make money selling marijuana to beach bunnies. Eventually he moves on to cocaine and begins importing directly from the Medellin cartel in Columbia. His first wife, Ermine (Rachel Griffiths) dies of cancer; second wife, Mirtha (Penelope Cruz) turns out to be rather volatile-- like his mother. The last part of the film focusses on his devotion to his estranged daughter.
JOHNNY DEPP, PENELOPE CRUZ, BARBARA BUCKLEY, RACHEL GRIFFITHS, PAUL REUBENS, JORDI MOLLA, CLIFF CURTIS, RAY LIOTTA, JESSE JAMES
On the surface, this is a crime-thriller, but is there more than meets the eye? Lee Marvin is Walker and we are introduced to him at the moment is he shot and left for dead in an abandoned prison, after agreeing to help his friend, Reese (John Vernon) pick up some money. Walker recovers and then sets out to retrieve the money he is owed. What he finds is a path of betrayal and deceit that seems to lead higher and higher up into some obtuse organization, and into the office towers of LA. Is he being used? Is it all a con? Point Blank is too smart to be a conventional thriller, but doesn't have the glossy surfaces of some later con movies like "Sixth Sense". It shares a family relationship, but doesn't share the family resemblence. There are a lot of decent actors in this film, and the plot keeps moving, so it's entertaining in a tactile sense. And there is this strange sense of humour-- the hoodlums all act like corporate chieftains, and when Walker keeps demanding his money of them, they try to stonewall him the way a big corporation would stonewall a dissastisfied customer whose car blew up as he drove it off the lot.
LEE MARVIN, JOHN VERNON, ANGIE DICKENSON, KEENAN WYNN, CARROLL O'CONNOR, LLOYD BOCHNER, MICHAEL STRONG, SHARON ACKER, JAMES SIKKING, ROBERTA HAYNES, KATHLEEN FREEMAN
Unusual, deeply romantic film about four beautiful sisters whose parents, devout Christians, deprive them of the opportunity to love. They all decide to commit suicide on the same day. Yes, rather far-fetched, but striking in it's risky try for something mythical here, about beauty and love. The main problem is you don't see what is really so lovable about these girls, aside from the fact they are physically beautiful. This is the film that reveals that "Lost in Translation" was a fluke: Sophia Coppola is not a great director.
KIRSTEN DUNST, JAMES WOODS, KATHLEEN TURNER
Steve Martin plays Gil Buckman who is trying to help his young son through some difficult times. His brother also has problems, large gambling debts, and other family members have loads more. Well-written and acted, and surprisingly poignant at times. The humour is restrained to stay within the drama and there is a pleasand edginess to the humour, which is about the best we can expect from Ron Howard.
STEVE MARTIN, RICK MORANIS, DIANNE WIEST, TOM HULCE, HARLEY KOZAK
Reputedly one of Hitchcock's finest films. Clever story-line about a stranger, a wealthy dilettante named Bruno, who meets up with an amateur tennis player named Guy on a train and leads him on a ridiculous but credible conversation about the perfect murder: two strangers, meeting on a train (just like Guy and Bruno)agree to murder someone for the other. Since the first suspect is always someone involved in some way with the victim, this will fool the police and serve the nefarious purposes of the conspirators perfectly. But Guy is no fool and disregards the stranger, until he is shocked to discover that his wife has been murdered and Bruno now expects him to carry out his end of the bargain. There's a lot of wit and cleverness here, great dialogue, and an intelligent narrative for the most part, but some rather preposterous developments and confrontations that weaken the plot. At times, Guy and his girl-friend, Anne Morton, the daughter of a Senator, act as if Bruno has been a naughty boy scout. But there are marvelous touches, like the little boy laughing on the merry-go-round that has gone berserk, and Barbara Morton's blunt observations, and the two elderly ladies enjoying Bruno's "fantasy" about how to do away with an unwanted husband.
Saw this at the Imax in Toronto. Not all of the additional material is brilliant, but an incredibly rich experience.
Terry Zwighoff directed the acclaimed documentary, Crumb, on the dysfunctional Crumb family featuring the acerbic but sometimes scary comic artist Robert Crumb. "Crumb" was brilliant so hopes were high for Ghost World. Based on Daniel Clowes comic book. Enid obviously has the chops but never quite cuts to the quick. Once you move past the disappointing lack of acid, the film is actually quite likable and tries to be quirky and definitely tries to be honest. There is no pie in the face at the end, and there is definitely aspirations to poetry, in the man, Norman, who waits eternally for a bus that never arrives, and Enid's own peculiar fade-out at the end, which reminded me not a little of Chaplin's wandering tramp. Enid's escapade in a fast-food outlet must have been tempting for some very broad, vicious humour, but Zwighoff stays within the characters. He is too honest to cheat reality for sensationalism. The result is more low-key but, in a way, more satisfying as Enid emerges as a well-rounded character with real and compelling aspirations. Watched again 2019-11-03: Really a rather exceptional study of existential despair. What I missed is the subtle but powerful indictment of modern culture: the film is full of references to corporate brands like Radio Shack and East Side Mario's, and snide references to chains and marketing and the drab, treacly, dreary reality of everyday life in America-- a true nod to Robert Crumb's cynical take that led him to move to France. Uncompromising in its vision, nobody gets off here. There is even a shot of a horizon clouded with electrical wires that evokes famous Crumb cartoon. Enid's cynicism, which can be grating at times, is exactly the point. It's corrosive and pointless at times-- something that Rebecca seems to realize, even as she says "some people are okay but mostly I just feel like poisoning everybody". She's destructive too, to almost everyone around her, and she begins to realize it. Everyone she knows is either pretentious and self-centred, or unlovable and isolated. Spoiler alert: kudos to Zwighoff for having the guts to have Enid have sex with Seymour, ruining his relationship with the charming Dana. And then that dark ending. Clowes claims he didn't consciously mean for the ending to suggest Enid's suicide, but doesn't discount the idea either (he suggests he may have unconsciously intended it).
THORA BIRCH, SCARLETT JOHANSSON, STEVEN BUSCEMI
Finely crafted and compelling story of a woman and her two children living in a dreary, haunted mansion on the island of Jersey in the English channel during the waning years of World War II. Her husband is gone, disappeared at the front. A mysterious cook, groundskeeper, and maid arrive shortly after the previous staff disappeared.
NICOLE KIDMAN
Interesting and memorable-- but slow-moving-- Japanese film about memory. A group of people who have just died are instructed to choose the one memory they will live with for all of eternity.
SADAO ABE
Mildly interesting sequel. About as expected. Nice special effects, hokey plot, tedious dialogue, with a tiny, noteworthy attempt at wit.
Very long-winded, and occasionally outright boring dissection of a man's protracted attempt to persuade someone to bury him after he crawls into a hole and takes and overdose of sleeping pills to end his own life.
The first twenty minutes or so of Moulin Rouge are intoxicating and mesmerizing. The combination of graphics, music, humour, and special effects-- brilliant. It is almost impossible to describe-- a whirling, spinning pastiche of old Paris, dancers, narrator, and a clever panoramic sweep of the city, from one locale to another as the action cuts into itself. Then... why is that audiences that are supposed to be able to absorb and appreciate the highly experimental, cutting-edge brilliance of the montage at the beginning are suddenly expected to go brain-dead for the rest of the plot: the nefarious, rich bastard who takes the innocent but beautiful and mortally ill actress away from the oh-so-earnest and deserving sincere writer? Why is there no ambiguity in Satine's claim that she is willing to go with the evil Duke of Monroth only to save the show? Why is Christian (Ewan McGregor) so whussy as the writer? Because Hollywood is a thrill ride that ultimately never wants to challenge rigid conceptions and cliches? Because this is ultimate a gutless movie that gave somebody some crazy license at the beginning only to reel him in like bloated corpse for the last hour? I would watch the first twenty minutes again and again. But you might want to leave the theatre, but then, come back for a kinky "Roxanne" near the end, for fun.
NICOLE KIDMAN, EWAN MCGREGOR, JOHN LEGUIZAMO, JIM BROADBENT, RICHARD ROXBURGH, JACEK KOMAN
Disappointing hokum from Spielberg allegedly based on concept by Stanley Kubrick, which seems astonishing given the childishness and triviality of the script. Phoney from the first moment onwards, details the story of a robot boy who comes to replace a seriously ill boy in a young family. The robot-- get this-- wants to be a "real" boy, thereby embodying, within a mechanical device, an aspiration that can only be human. The last hour is a knock 'em down drag it out tear jerker, mawkish and embarrassing.
Shockings story about a death camp survivor who resumes a sexual relationship with one of her Nazi torturers, in 1957 Vienna.
DIRK BOGARDE, CHARLOTTE RAMPLING, PHILIPPE LEROY
Very remiscent of "Bicycle Thief" or "Shoeshine"-- about a poor family in Iran struggling to get by. The young son loses his sisters only shoesand the two them decide to share his running shoes until they can get them back. Marvelous low-key film with remarkable performances from the children though I'm guessing that most of the tears were induced with glycerine. Straightforwardly filmed-- all the charm is in the details of life and the emotional involvement of the characters.
MOHAMMED AMIR NAJI, AMIR FARROKH HASHEMIAN, BAHARE SEDDIQI
Like Fisher King, Dead Poet's Society, and countless other "serious" Hollywood films, Fight Club starts out clever and amazing and acidic, and then, for reasons unexplained, descends into a conventional shoot 'em up chase thriller. Edward Norton is the narrator, "I am Jack", I guess, and Bradd Pitt is Tyler Durden. They meet on an airplane flight and create a fight club that eventually organizes cells of revolutionaries all across the country and plan to blow up all the major credit card company offices. Right. That's the dumb part of the story. What is more interesting is that Edward Norton-- Jack-- lives the "quiet life of desparation" as an executive with an unnamed "big" car company. His job is to do risk assessments of defects in the cars his company manufacturers, to determine if it would be cheaper to do a recall or to settle the numerous lawsuits resulting from accidents. He buys Ikea furniture-- a totem for the meaning of the first half of the movie-- and lives in an exclusive condo and can't sleep. He just can't sleep at all. He sees a doctor who wise refuses to prescribe drugs (I think he's wise-- I'm not sure the movie does). He starts attending meetings of various groups of survivors of serious health conditions, including testicular cancer. Realizing that the other members of these groups assume that he also has the condition they are all suffering from, he joins in their activities. Meat Loaf is Bob Paulsen, who has grown breasts as a result of his treatment for testicular cancer, and envelops Jack in an sobbing embrace. Jack cries. He begins to like the experiences. He suddenly finds he can sleep. It is a remarkable insight that when he discovers another fake joining these groups, Marla Singer, he loses his ability to believe in his own charades, and can no longer sleep. He tries to drive her out of the group, but she is stubborn. They finally agree to split the groups up between the two of them, alternating weeks for odd one out. It is at this point that he meets Tyler on an airplane. Soon afterwards, Jack's condo is bombed and he ends up moving in with Tyler, into a decrepid old house among deteriorating warehouses. Tyler despises the consumer mentality and soon has Jack under his spell. One night, he convinces Jack to punch him, just to see what it feels like. Jack eventually oblidges and they discover that they both like it. You could read a lot into this element of the story, but the movie itself doesn't give you a lot of clues about what it is about beating each other to a pulp that is meaningful to them. It is a repudiation of the image of success and conformity that oppresses them, obviously, but also some kind of exercise of purification. Soon, others join in, and they have a club, and the club grows. Meanwhile, Tyler and Marla have begun an intense sexual relationship. Jack sees this relationship as an echo of his parent's dysfunctional relationship. He rejects Marla and wants her to stay out of their lives. And then... and then... and then Jack spends a lot of time rebelling against Tyler's more extreme tendencies and the movie kind of limps along pointlessly, with chase scene after chase scene, and the same tired replays of Jack's whiny horror at Tyler's excesses. This is all, presumably, supposed to make sense at the end. Some of it does, but no amount of explanation can rationalize the long stretches of dramatic stasis. It doesn't move forward. It doesn't continue to engage you at the level it promised in the first few scenes. What happened to the brand names? The political undertones? The revolutionary fervor? How are we suppose to respond to Tyler running his cell groups like a petty little fascist dictator, when he is supposedly motivated by a hatred of how corporations try to control his life? What do we make of the preposterous claim that no one will be killed when they blow up all of the credit card sky scrapers because they have seen to it that the maintenance crews are out of the building. It is a ridiculous claim given the premises established elsewhere in the movie, as is Tyler's assertion that blowing up the offices of the credit card companies will restore everyone's credit balances to zero-- if they could possible account for all the possible locations of off-site backup computers and data, and as if they had the resources to place bombs in all of these buildings in the first place. So, at that point, it's pure fantasy, but, like those other Hollywood movies I mentioned above, Fight Club wants it both ways. The impact of the first half depends on a belief that this is a realistic, sardonic look at one man's rebellion against our society. The second half depends for its impact on your belief that this is all just a fantasy. As rule, that never works. See "Dr. Strangelove" for an example of how it should be done. So it's actually "The Apartment" meets "Godzilla" at the end, which is satisfying as it sounds. Fincher's previous credits include "The Game", another high concept movie that cheated in the same way. You are asked to accept a premise, believe in the conditions that are established early on, and then suspend all credulity for the last hour of the film as the director cheats and tricks you into believing some mind-blowing event was event is within the realm of possibilities. It can be a neat trick, but it's still just a trick. It's a movie that acts like a circus act, not a drama. But even scarier is the way Hollywood takes legitimate dissent, as expressed in Jack's rebellion against his sorry corporate identity, and repackages and resells it to you as idle entertainment. Someday soon, this film is going to be shown to you on television with commercial breaks. Nobody is concerned that you are going to be inspired by what happens in the first part of this movie and turn your television off.
BRAD PITT, EDWARD NORTON, HELENA BONHAM CARTER, MEAT LOAF, JARED LETO, ZACK GRENIER
Every few years a new animated feature raises the bar. Shrek is the latest. The animation is so good that at times you forget that the human figures are not real. It has reached the point where one rightly wonders why animate at all, at least, for the scenes that only involve interactions between human characters. The answer is really not all that complicated. You can do things in animation that you can't do with real actors. Although, the impressive achievements in special effects lately have altered that equation as well. Shrek is an ogre living in a smelly swamp somewhere. He likes being alone. He likes bathing in mud and farting in the pond. He enjoys nothing quite so much as peace and solitude. Later, we're given something of an explanation for his solitude, and yeah, it's pretty much what you'd expect. One day, Shrek's swamp is invaded by hundreds of fairy tale creatures, including Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, the three pigs, Cinderella, etc. Shrek is infuriated and when informed that they are there on the orders of Prince Farquaad, he sets out to demand an explanation. Farquaad convinces Shrek to set out on a quest in exchange for the removal of the fairy tale creatures: he is to rescue the Princess Fiona from a fire-breathing dragon who is holding her in a castle high above a lava river. Shrek sets out with his donkey sidekick to complete the quest. He succeeds but, inevitably, begins to fall in love with the spirited princess. There is a misunderstanding, of course, and a fight, and the princess prepares to marry the Prince Farquaad. And then, astonishingly, the melancholic chords of John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" begin and we are treated to an extraordinary moment of grace and beauty. At least one verse is omitted, but the effect is rather impressive. The story is funny, and the script is sharp and witty, and the animations, of course, are breath-taking. The parodies of Disney are cute and to the point. Extremely entertaining and amusing.
MIKE MYERS, JOHN LITHGOW, CAMERON DIAZ
I liked this film in spite of the fact that there is so much about it that is not particularly good. The story is about Bridgit Jones, a 32-year-old clerical worker at a book publisher, and her drive to land herself a husband. She has two possibilities, Daniel Cleaver, her boss, an attractive, suave, womanizing lech (Hugh Grant) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) a serious lawyer who works on human rights cases. Darcy at first alienates her with a comment about her weight and conversation, and Daniel has the upper hand, but we gradually come to realize that the men are not what they appear to be at first-- of course. The film brings to life a number of scenes but I often had the feeling that they were still in rough draft. The timing was not very good. Some moments that looked promising at first glance disappointed, as when Bridget blurts out some kind of objection at the announcement (at a party) that Darcy is going to New York and is thinking about marrying his snotty girlfriend. In another scene, she is doing a television story from a firehall and is to slide down the pole on camera. She starts too early and ends up crashing into the cameraman. The idea is there, but it wasn't executed very well. Why was the camera-man directly beneath the pole anyway-- was he intending to shoot up her dress on National Television? And they didn't explain why it would end up on TV-- was it really live? If it was, they didn't convey that sense of electric tension that live television crews surely experience. Bridget is supposed to be lovable, one assumes, because she is cute and honest and humble. She is indeed likable. A more Americanized version of this character would have her achieving remarkable things by accident. She scoops an interview with an immigrant fighting deportation but then asks his girlfriend what she first saw in him. We are meant to make a romantic connection between the question and Darcy sitting beside her, but it also confirms the impression that Bridget really is a ditz and really doesn't have that remarkable charm we expect her to have. There is a sideplot about Bridget's parents separating and then reuniting, which has it's moments of genuine sadness. Salmon Rushdie and Jeffrey Archer make surprising appearances as themselves at some kind of literary luncheon.
BRIDGIT JONES, HUGH GRANT, COLIN FIRTH
Very slow moving but elegant science fiction story about a mysterious planet that has the effect of calling forth memories from astronauts and bringing them to life. The story follows Kris Kelvin whose dead wife, Khari, is brought back to life-- and death-- by the mysterious landscape. This causes the other scientists at the base, Sartorius and Gibaryan, to question Kelvin's motives and rationality. Mysterious, contemplative, sometimes a bit tedious, but intriguing.
NATALYA BONDARCHUK, DONATAS BANIONIS, JURI JARVET, VLADISLAV DVORZHETSKY, NIKOLAI GRINKO, ANATOLI SOLONITSYN, SOS SARKISYAN
This film was once selected by French critics as the best French film of the 20th Century. You can see why. It is the very definition of "fully realized", for it's era. It is spectacular and serious and profound, at times, but also romantic and sentimental. The story concerns Baptiste, a mime, and his career at French Theatre, and Frederick, an actor, who begins his career at the same time. They are both in love with Garance, a beautiful woman who also enters the stage, fortuitously. She has a third love: the Raskolnikovesque Lacenaire, a thief and genius, who writes plays, but also aspires to murder, out of principle. Garance-- standards of "beauty" evidently change-- she looks old to me-- is a free spirit, ahead of her time. She doesn't want to be tied to any man, though, in the end, it is clear that she is truly in love with one of them. Faced with charges of complicity in murder, she demonstrates an pragmatic, opportunistic streak, leaving Frederick and Baptiste to fulfill their careers without her for a time. There must be a subtext to this story-- it was produced in France in 1944-43 under the nose of Vichy. But it's not clear to me what exactly the subtext is, except that clearly audiences will attribute to the Nazis all the unattractive, authoritarian characteristics, and to themselves the libertarian values of Baptiste and Garance. But Lacenaire is a more complicated character-- a nihilist, who steals and murders and implicates Garance, and boldly confronts his own fate. Would I rate it France's best picture ever? It is certainly a great movie, and a classic, but it is also quite theatrical and occasionally pompous. As a movie, no.
ARLETTY, QEAN-LOUIS BARRAULT, PIERRE BRASSEUR, MARCEL HEMAND
Altman is as faithful to Chandler here as he is to anyone else who provides source material: it's just raw colors, pigments, like Marlowe's (Elliot Gould's) face, or the windows in Wade's mansion. This is a meandering, undpredictable, delicate, and trying experiment, mixing elements of film noire with Altman's post-modern sensibilities. Gould plays Philip Marlow, a private detective who leads an aimless kind of life in a gorgeous apartment next to four lovely "candle-dippers" who like to sunbathe topless and tell him what a nice neighbor he is. One night a friend of his, Terry Lennox (played by Jim Bouton, if you can believe it) drops by unexpectedly and begs him to drive him to Tijuana. When he returns, he finds out Lennox's wife has been murdered and he is suspected of aiding and abetting a felony by helping Terry Lennox escape. Shortly afterwards, he is off the hook when it is reported that Lennox committed suicide in Mexico. Complications ensue, including a possible affair between an alcoholic writer and Lennox's wife, and a dope dealer named Marty Augustine who is owed a considerable sum of money by Lennox. Those are the basic elements of the story, and Altman, as always, executes stylishly. You get the feeling that he is utterly unlike any other director in his insistence on taking the time he wants to make every shot, and to give the actors room to create their characters. I never much liked Elliot Gould in anything. I didn't dislike him, but, aside from M*A*S*H (another Altman film), I've always found him a bit supercilious and mannered. But the rest of the cast is outstanding, especially Sterling Hayden and Henry Gibson. The world Altman creates here bears study. It's a murky, post-modern world if there ever was one. What is the anchor that holds any character together in this, or any other Altman film? Why does Marlowe do what he does at the end-- surprising us-- why does he care? Part of the problem is Gould-- he doesn't give us that inner light that would tell us.
ELLIOT GOULD, STERLING HAYDEN, HENRY GIBSON, DAVID ARKIN, TERRY LENNOX, WARREN BERLINGER, MARK RYDELL, NINA VAN PALLANDT
Obviously inspired by the Republican jihad against Bill Clinton's sex life, the Contender is a well-written, thoughtful, meditative take on personal morality and public office. Karen Allen plays a nominee for Vice-President, a Senator, who may have taken part in group sex at a frat party once. The Republicans, slyly leaking documents and allegations so they don't appear to be "sensationalizing", try to use the information against her, and to place a more congenial Governor into the position of Vice President instead. This is a snappy, smart movie. It's walks the edge sometimes in terms of credibility, but most of the story is quite plausible, given what we know about recent presidents. This president swears a blue streak, as do many of the other politicians involved, but we know from the Watergate tapes that shocking language isn't a novelty in the Oval Office. Does the film cop out at the end? After arguing for two hours that a person's private sexual behavior has no place in public political discourse-- the movie wants to have it both ways. It's like arguing for acceptance of homosexuality while showing, at the end, that the person wasn't really homosexual after all. This is a movie that may not believe in it's own premise. Confirming that impression-- the President's ridiculously improbable speech to Congress at the end, demanding an immediate confirmation vote. After a very tight, very plausible script, this ending seems tacked on and phoney.
KAREN ALLEN, JEFF DANIELS
Powerful film about the effects of the drug trade on dealers, users, parents, and government and police. Superbly filmed and acted.
All you need to know is that T-Bone Burnett was responsible for the music, and the Coen brothers for the film itself. The Coen brothers provide the quirky, original story and characters. T-Bone Burnett provides some of the most raw, authentic-sounding country and gospel tunes you will hear anywhere. The three cons are escapees from a Mississippi penal colony, headed out for some treasure stashed somewhere-- the supposed loot from an armoured car robbery. The story is said to be based on Homer's Odyssey, but I'm not sure how fruitful that connection is. The men speak in honest southern accents, which makes it a bit of a task to understand them occasionally-- but it's worth the effort. Their voices are as authentic to the south as the music is. Brother meanders a little. Occasionally, I found myself wishing that someone from the tv series "Malcom in the Middle" had had a hand in editing: scenes do get dragged out occasionally. In fact, a few even seem gratuitous. Was John Goodman really worth his fifteen minutes? Did the evil prison police really want to wait to see what the noise was before hanging the three of them at the end? The scene with the KKK is visually interesting, but rather predictable and conventional. Of course, they save their black friend, and the heroes of the film are nascent progressives-- though they are supposed to be semi-literate prisoners in Mississippi in the 1930's! They never use the word "nigger"-- a Disney-style corrective to history that is as dishonest as the music isn't. Worth seeing, but not one of the Coen brothers' best efforts.
GEORGE CLOONEY, JOHN GOODMAN, HOLLY HUNTER, JOHN TORTURRO, CHARLES DURNING
Sequel to "Silence of the Lambs", with a script by David Mamet (and it shows), one of the more horrifying psycho-killer dramas of recent memory. Interesting at times because Hannibal is made out to be urbane, sophisticated, and honorable, in his own deviant way, though the director doesn't stoop to the cheapest devices for this angle. Julianne Moore is good as FBI Agent, Clarice Starling. They are foils for each other, but there is an imputed erotic connection between the two. And that over-the-top scene with Ray Liotta's brain-- this film was rated AA-- do you believe that? The most interesting scenes are in Florence, where Lector has taken a job as some kind of museum guide, and is stalked by Pazzi, a down on his luck detective who needs the reward money (Giancarlo Gianinni in a tasty bit.) Foster wisely turned down the role, but Moore does pretty well in it. But he implied eroticism between her and Lector never really comes off as anything more than some kind of dopey obverseness. Note: David Mamet didn't really write the final script. He started it, but it was taken over half-way through the project and most of the final dialogue was written by Steven Zallian.
JULIANNE MOORE, RAY LIOTTA, ANTHONY HOPKINS, GIANCARLO GIANNINI
Superior war drama about two snipers confronting each other in Leningrad during the height of the Nazi offensive. One is a Russian farm boy, Vasily Zaetsev, who learned to shoot while herding sheep (the real Zaetsev was more an accountant). The other is a sophisticated man of the world, a Major Konig (Ed Harris). The film makes no bones about whose "side" it is on, downplaying Soviet anti- Semitism and Stalin's purges in a side plot that doesn't really have much to do with the real story. (This is allegedly based on a true story.) But both men are shown as honorable and intelligent, though not to the point of absurdity: when it's time to kill, it's time to kill. Some of the wide shots are breath-taking, though presumably computer generated. Acting is good, and the action is compelling. Most of the incidents are reasonably credible, though Annaud hypes the significance of the campaign just a tad. It is true that the fall of the Nazis began with their defeat at Leningrad, but the battle of Britain and D-Day could certainly be rated as equally significant. Quibbling. The desolation and waste of the destruction of Leningrad are amply exposed, but we don't get much from the side of the stubborn peasants who also refused to give even an inch. [2013] A little less impressed the second time around. Utterly contrived romance between Zaetsev and a woman sniper. Ed Harris is great, but Jude Law is terrible. And really, this was a great story without all the BS about Major Konig, of whom there is no historical record whatsoever: just Zaetsev's bragging.
ED HARRIS, JUDE LAW, BOB HOSKINS, JOSEPH FIENNES
Beautiful, idyllic fable about a young girl and her brother lost in the Australian outback (after their father shoots himself and sets fire to their car) where they meet a young boy on a "walkabout"-- an aboriginal rite of passage in which the adolescent must survive a period by himself in the wild. They develop an interesting relationship-- the girl and her brother dependent on the hunting and survival skills of the boy. There is a bit of cliche's posturizing about nature vs. civilization, and the last scenes kind of bite. She remembers the "walkabout" fondly, as her nerdish husband brags about some kind of promotion. But it is a weak conclusion to an otherwise remarkable film. You have to admire Roeg's instincts to go for the shot he wants, without regard to Hollywood convention or, at times, propriety (his low angles on Agutter as she climbs a mountain in a short skirt, or hangs upside down from a tree). And he doesn't homogenize the ambiguous relationship between the boy and the girl-- there is a sexual element that is unrealized.
JENNY AGUTTER
Interesting if sometimes confusing story about a young man who is able to reach his dead father in the past through an old ham radio set. By doing so, he is able to influence past events in ways that don't work out as he expects. But that is an extremely simplified cast of a very complex, multi-layered plot that revolves around a serial killer, the 1969 World Series, and the young man's problems holding on to his girl. Schmaultzy at times, and more than occasionally intriguing. It holds your interest and your curiousity at the same time that you might be appalled at the gross sentimentality. And, oddly enough for a fantasy, it lacks imagination and playfulness. There's a lot of intriguing possibilities in this kind of story, but most of them are not realized and the story kind of waddles into sentimentality. This theme was done right in the Shoeless Joe Jackson film, "The Playing Fields".
RANDY QUAID
Little known German film from which Spielberg almost certainly derived general ideas, shots, sequences, and tone, for "Saving Private Ryan". Very bitter drama about soldiers who defend a bridge, sacraficing many lives, only to discover that the bridge is to be destroyed anyway.
FOLKER BOHNET, FRITZ WEPPER, MICHAEL HINZ
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