1998 review archive
Here's everything I wrote in 1998. The reviews are in the order I wrote them. If you're looking for a specific review, you're much better off consulting the 1998 Review Indexes.
Destiny
Written by Youssef Chahine and Khaled YoussefDirected by Youssef Chahine
1997
I saw this movie over a year ago at the Chicago International Film Festival, but since it's garnered a (pitifully small) U.S. release this year, it's eligible for my current top ten, so here goes. Chahine has directed around 40 films and is considered Egypt's greatest filmmaker, but this is the first to get distribution in this country. A loose biography of the great 12th century philosopher Averroes (Nour El Cherif), who was persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists over his belief in a less literal interpretation of the Koran, Destiny is a jaw-dropping mixture of old-fashioned genres--it's a biopic, an adventure film, a romance, a musical, and a humanist message-movie all rolled in to one. Highly entertaining in spots (especially in the musical numbers, which are deleriously joyous), it nonetheless becomes a bit tiring and didactic over the course of its 135 minute running time.
Zero Effect
Written and Directed by Jake Kasdan1998
A good-natured Sherlock Holmes update with Bill Pullman as Daryl Zero, a P.I. who's as brilliant in his deductive powers as he is inept at basic social interaction, and Ben Stiller as his alternately amazed and exasperated Watson. Kasdan (Lawrence's too-damn-young-to-be-doing-this son) gets strong performances from his leads; Pullman, who can play a nerd better than anyone, pulls out the comic stops, and Stiller has become an ace straight man. Funny set-pieces gradually give way to a plot that's . . . well, to tell you the truth I don't remember much about the plot six months later. Serviceable, I guess.
Illtown
Written & Directed by Nick Gomez1996
Though most certainly a failure, this artsy, drug-addled crime drama, which bombed critically and commercially, has an impressively sustained tone of numbness and dread, and some beautiful moments. I particulary fell for some scenes featuring an impossibly pretty young dealer and his beloved car, some nicely impressionistic "trip" sequences, and a Kevin Corrigan monologue that's borderline classic. Unfortunately, Illtown also meanders and contains a lot of pretentious symbolism (starting with the characters' names--Dante and Gabriel my ass). And how Gomez (Laws of Gravity, New Jersey Drive) managed to waste both Lili Taylor and Michael Rappaport I'll never know.
Carne trémula
Written by Pedro Almodóvar, Jorge Guerricaechevarría & Ray LorigaDirected by Pedro Almodóvar
1997
The latest film from formerly flamboyant (I promise not to call him a "bad boy") Spanish director Almodóvar is a solid, enjoyably complex (I'm not even going to attempt a plot summary) melodrama that's consistently watchable but never quite takes off. As in 1995's La Flor de mi secreto, he's somehow taken material that's supremely twisty and tawdry (in other words, prime Almodóvar stuff) and managed, through an otherwise admirable restraint, to make it, well, kinda flat. However, if they gave an Oscar for the best combined performances of a film's five most prominent actors, and if any Academy members actually watched foreign films, and if it were a perfect world, Carne trémula would win hands down, as Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal, Ángela Molina and José Sancho are all extraordinary.
Mother and Son
Written by Yuri ArabovDirected by Alexander Sokurov
1997
First off, let me say that this is the kind of movie for which the phrase "love it or hate it" seems to have been coined. It's a litmus test for one's tolerance of everything arty, pretentious, plotless, Russian, etc.-- the sort of film that people like Susan Sontag gush about (in the solemnly awful trailer, which quickly became a ritual yuk-fest at the Music Box theater). Nearly every Internet critic I know actively dislikes it. The fact that it's my favorite film of the year so far can probably tell you a lot about my tastes; if you're not into "abstruse, impressionistic palettes o' color 'n' light," as the Net's best critic, Mike D'Angelo, refers to Mother and Son and its ilk, then stay far, far away. Of course, if you don't happen to live in a large metropolitan center or a college town then you shouldn't have much trouble.
It probably won't do anything to change minds if I mention that Mother and Son is easily the most beautiful film of the year, filled with absolutely unforgettable images of the film's "stars" (Alexi Ananishnov and Gudrun Geyer) against the most wonderfully strange and haunting landscapes you'll probably ever see. Sokurov and his cinematographer, Alexi Fyodorov, distort their images using warped mirrors, special lenses and painted glass; their world appears gracefully elongated, then juts out in impossible angles, then almost drips off the screen. Sokurov is clearly a master of composition, but he also effectively uses slow (and I mean slow) movement, of actors and camera, as the compositions flow and change almost invisibly. It's a film of extraordinary stillness, in which a sudden turn of the head, or the fluttering of a moth, is almost shocking in contrast. The soudtrack is equally complex and evocative, a dense mix in which not-quite-identifiable sounds are tantalizingly just out of reach.
The plot, as you may have surmised by now, is practically non-existent. A son attends to his dying mother; he feeds her, they take a "walk," she dies (by the way, if you're concerned that that's a spoiler, think twice about going). Rather than characters, Sokurov gives us the striking presences of Ananishnov and Geyer, And unfortunately, rather than real dialogue, he gives us a brand of ponderous philosophical ponitifcation of the sort that's bothered me so much in the lastest movies by Angelopoulos, Wenders and Godard. But that's a small quibble--the movie's nearly dialogue-free anyway. Fact is, both times I saw it, I was happily content throughout the 70-odd minute running time to contemplate the beauty of a mountain path or a distant train. I was deeply moved at the conclusion, and I still haven't forgotten those images. Your contentment may vary.
Dangerous Beauty
Written by Jeannine DominyDirected by Marshall Herskovitz
1998
In these supremely self-conscious times, good bad movies are getting pretty scarce; it's the Melrose Place syndrome: once you know (or at least let the audience know you know) you're campy, you're not campy anymore. This over-the-top costume job about a young woman (Catherine McCormack from Braveheart) who chooses to be a relatively liberated courtesan rather than a lower-class nobody, wants to be a provocative mix of Merchant-Ivory and Zalman King, and it does have some kick as a pro-sex feminist manifesto. But as much as I enjoyed scenes like the one in which Jacqueline Bisset, as the heroine's ex-courtesan mother, gives her daughter lovemaking lessons, by the overblown grandstanding of the witchcraft trial finale I was begging for mercy. Aren't these movies supposed to be fun? And what Studio Goon thought that the moronic Dangerous Beauty was a better title than The Honest Courtesan, the title of the Margaret Rosenthal book on which the movie's based?
The Gingerbread Man
Written by Al HayesDirected by Robert Altman
1998
When is a John Grisham movie not a John Grisham movie? When it has a deeply flawed main character? When it's more concerned with atmospherics and peripheral details than the potboiler plot? When it's screenplay is rendered unrecognizable by its wily auteur? When it's unceremoniously dumped into art theaters by its angry studio? Well, let's just say that were it not for this movie's dissappointingly stadard-issue conclusion, Altman and his pseudonym might have created the anti-Grisham. What a pleasure it was not to be spoon-fed the latest green-idealistic-lawyer gruel, to be thrust into the story rather than endure another pile of clichés, to have a bit of mystery, for God's sake. The Gingerbread Man is really more of a film noir than a courtroom drama, and though it's miles away from Altman's 1973 noir critique, The Long Goodbye, it still provides plenty of shadowy thrills, at least until the last third. As for the actors, Kenneth Branagh pulls off an impeccable Southern drawl and Embeth Davidtz, as any alert Altman actress knows to do, promptly removes her clothes.
Taste of Cherry
Written and Directed by Abbas Kiarostami1997
Taste of Cherry, for which the acclaimed Iranian director Kiarostami (Through the Olive Trees) shared the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes film festival, has a premise that's as "catchy" as a Hollywood high concept: middle-aged Mr. Badii (Homayon Ershadi) drives around the Tehranian countryside looking to pay someone to help him kill himself. Kiarostami is definitely in minimalist mode here--probably about half the movie takes place in Mr. Badii's car, and there are many long takes of the (mostly kinda ugly) landscape--but he's come up with a subtle meditation on the nature of suicide that does not (despite the title, a reason to live according to one character), provide any easy answers. We never learn what has caused Mr. Badii to want to end his life, and, in the end, whether or not the deed is done becomes moot. What's more, what little narrative satisfaction Kiarostami allows us in Taste of Cherry is turned on its head in the startling confusion, which at first had me (and the rest of the audience I saw it with, it seemed) completely baffled. I couldn't decide whether it was the most audacious ending of any film this year or a pretentious Godardian/Brechtian blunder.
I'm leaning toward the former. The film has grown in my mind in the last six months (Jonathan Rosenbaum's excellent review of it in the Chicago Reader probably helped), and I have to admit, it resonates--it's somehow simultaneously straightforward and mysterious. In May I moved to Austin, and it hasn't played here yet (it opens in October, I think), so I'll get a chance to see it again. I hope to clarify my thoughts and add to this review then.
Dark City
Written and Directed by Alex Proyas1998
After suffering through his execrable The Crow, I wasn't expecting much from director Proyas, but this film's trailer was intriguing enough that I dutifully trudged on down to the multiplex, only to find out that (what a surprise) it's yet another Hollywood concoction that combines awesome visuals with horrendously inept storytelling. I won't go in to details (especially since I saw it over six months ago), but suffice to say that an intriguing premise--an alien race performs experiments on us poor humans by manufacturing false memories for different people in different combinations--is ruined by the typical stuff: bad acting (by Kiefer Sutherland most especially, though Rufus Sewell and Jennifer Connelly also fail to make much of an impression), atrocious dialogue, rampant clichés, and a ridiculously overblown finale.
The Real Blonde
Written and Directed by Tom DeCillo1997
As a big fan of DeCillo's 1995 making-a-movie farce Living in Oblivion, it's disheartening to watch him in decline, offering up grating whimsy in last year's pretty-good Box of Moonlight and meager "social commentary" in this just-barely-okay comedy. The story follows the romantic troubles of two Manhattanites, Joe (Matthew Modine), a self-deluded and lazy struggling actor / professional server, and Mary (DeCillo regular Catherine Keener), a prospering make-up assistant who supports him. Modine and Keener are very good, as always, but DeCillo isn't content to follow his protagonists--he has to "satirize." Thus we get a melange of sub-plots dealing with such hot topics as selling out one's ideals, the differences between men and women, and (my favorite) whether or not a woman is a "real blonde." The movie's intermittently funny--DeCillo still has a way with verbal comedy--but maybe next time he should do somebody else's script.
Nil by Mouth
Written and Directed by Gary Oldman1997
Yes, this is the latest in a long line of movies by a "what-I-really-want-to-do-is-direct" actor, but don't expect it to rob the Oscar from Scorsese or anything. No, this film is too sloppy, too harrowing, too honest, and ultimately too good to win Best Picture. Supposedly autobiographical, this sprawling drama about a working-class family from the projects of South London invokes amazement both at Oldman's skill as a director and at the fact that he, at least to some extent, lived through this.
Ray (Ray Winstone) is a bitter, hot-tempered alcoholic, prone to outbursts of violence, sometimes directed at his wife (Kathy Burke, who won the Best Actress prize at Cannes) or her drug-addicted brother Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles) or his mother-in-law Janet (Laila Morse, Oldman's real-life sister). There's not much of a narrative--the movie's really just a series of set-pieces loosely strung together--but that only reinforces its skillful naturalism. Like it's characters, Nil by Mouth is sloppy, gritty, and despairing; it's a little work to get through, but the immediacy of the images, the superlative acting, and the bracing lack of sentimentality are ample rewards.
From the very first scene, which takes place in a noisy club and slyly introduces us to all the main characters, Oldman immerses us in the action. There's no set-up, no superfluous narration, no deliberate pacing; even the dialogue is partially unintelligble (so much so that the Music Box Theater, where I saw it, felt compelled to warn their patrons before going in). The film's documentary-like style, complete with recklessly beautiful hand held camera and overlapping sound, makes the movie's most powerful scenes--such as the one in which Janet must procure heroin for her desperate son--that much more overwhelming. Only near the end, when Ray explains the movie's title in a long monologue, does Oldman's careful control falter. Still, Winstone's delivery is so good, the scene almost works, and finally proves only a minor distraction. Not to be missed.
The Big Lebowski
Written by Ethan & Joel CoenDirected by Joel Coen
1998
This shambling wreck from the Coen brothers, who I guess deserved a bit of sef-indulgence after the relatively controlled Fargo, is about a dude named Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) who gets involved in a kidnapping plot after he is mistaken by some thugs for a different man with the same name, the "Big" Lebowski of the title. Despite some noir trappings (it riffs on The Big Sleep), this is as much a comedy as Raising Arizona, and I'd say the ratio of stuff that works (John Turturro's hilarious turn as a bowler named Jesus comes to mind) to the stuff that doesn't (Julianne Moore's performance artist and the German Nihilists, definitely) is about 3 to 1, which ain't bad. The Soundtrack is wonderful, and the photography, by the great Roger Deakins, captures a gloriously seedy Los Angeles. What I think I enjoyed most, though, was the giddy feeling that the plot was being made up as it went along.
Mrs. Dalloway
Written by Eileen AtkinsDirected by Marleen Gorris
1997
Following up on the promise of its laughable preview ("Oh Lucy! What a wonderful day for my paaaah-tee!"), which I saw about five billion times, this Virginia Woolf adaptation by the Oscar-winning Gorris (Antonia's Line) is watchable but clearly a failure. You can almost feel the brilliant story trying to escape the set-design fetishization, the pedestrian direction, and the truly terrible voice-overs. Some of the acting is good (notably Michael Kitchen), but what's the point?
Twilight
Written by Robert Benton & Richard RussoDirected by Robert Benton
1998
Benton's last movie, Nobody's Fool, which starred Paul Newman, was an enjoyably low-key affair that had the look and feel of small town America down cold. His latest, which stars Newman along with Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, and James Garner, is set squarely in Movieland--that place where ex-detectives and aging actors get caught up in blackmail and murder. Benton's shooting for an old-fashioned noir (by the way, what's with all the noirs lately?) and his cinematographer, the brilliant Piotr Sobocinski (Trois Coleurs: Rouge) is more than up to the task, but, frankly, the script stinks. So the movie ends up being an actor's showcase, and it sure is fun to watch the old pros try to top each other's performances--when you're not groaning at the plot twists, that is.
Love and Death on Long Island
Written and Directed by Richard Kwietniowski1997
An absolute delight. John Hurt stars as Giles De'Ath, a stodgy, fiftyish writer who hasn't quite moved into the Twentieth Century yet. Upon a trip (his first, we presume) to his local multiplex, De'Ath, looking for the latest E.M. Forster adaptation, accidently wanders into a screening of something called Hotpants College II, where he prompltly becomes fixated on a young "actor" named Ronnie Bostock (an incredibly game Jason Priestly). Hurt gives an absolutely magnificent comic performance in this light and funny riff on "Death in Venice"; he's so good, in fact, that he's virtually guaranteed to be passed over for an Oscar. Kwietniowski does have some trouble ending the picture (supposedly it's been changed from the ending of Gilbert Adair's source novel), but this is probably the most enjoyable time I've had at a new movie since Irma Vep back in October.
The Leading Man
Written by Virginia DuiganDirected by John Duigan
1996
Another solid but unspectacular piece of work from the eclectic Austrailian director Duigan (Flirting, Sirens, Lawn Dogs), this engrossing backstage comedy concerns a playwright named Felix Webb (Lambert Wilson), who plans to leave his loving and beautiful wife (Anna Galiena) for his sexy young mistress (Thandie Newton, Beloved), the lead actress in his newest play. The plot thickens when a Hollywood stud (Jon Bon Jovi) is hired for the lead and suggests to Webb that his wife might be happier if he (the stud) seduced her. Bon Jovi is decent, if a little lightweight; the other actors are uniformly first-rate. I enjoyed this quite a bit until the last twenty minutes or so, which are overwrought and unsatisfying. There should be a law against the use of guns in movies about the theater.
Wild Things
Written by Stephen PetersDirected by John McNaughton
1998
Fairly effective trash, with Kevin Bacon chewing the scenery as a detective investigating a high school guidance counselor (Matt Dillon) accused of raping a rich and popular student (Denise Richards). Suffice to say that all's not as it seems. Of the large cast (which also includes Neve Campbell, as a more rebellious student, and Bill Murray as an ambulance-chasing lawyer), only Richards doesn't seem to realize how lurid the material is, and the Florida locale is captured nicely by McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) and his cinematographer, Jeffrey L. Kimball. Whether you enjoy the film, however, may depend on your tolerance for the gratuitous girl-girl and threesome scenes and the "outrageous" plot twists, which are so plentiful they're still being explained in the closing credits.
Hana-bi
Written and Directed by Takeshi Kitano1997
Normally I wouldn't list a Japanese film under its original title, but in this case the English translation, Fireworks, doesn't do justice to the beautiful Hana-bi. See, in Japanese, Hana means "flower" and bi means "fire." Together, the two words mean "fireworks," but Kitano (Boiling Point, Sonatine) uses the hyphen to emphasize the duality--a beautiful metaphor for Hana-bi, the film.
Known as "Beat" Takeshi, Kitano's a huge star in Japan on TV and radio and in print (though his movies, apparently, have flopped), and he's a complete original. Hana-bi is like nothing I've ever seen before, wedding stomach-churning violence with sentimentality, slapstick with stasis, and brutality with a wistful melancholy. Kitano plays Inspector Nishi, a detective who's forced to re-evaluate his life when his partner (Ren Osugi) is shot and confined to a wheelchair and his wife (Kayoko Kishimoto) becomes terminally ill. This is Kitano's eighth film, and he's become a brilliant stylist--this will probably be the most exquisitely crafted movie I'll see all year. Still, it's hard not to be disgusted by the film's macho (dare I say fascist?) mindset. Particularly troubling to me was a beach scene in which a nerdy wisp of a man starts yelling (for no readily apparent reason) at Nishi's wife. He's irritating, but harmless; a fact that doesn't stop Nishi from calmly bashing his head in. Kitano has an expressionless mug that holds its own with Clint Eastwood's, but do we really need to revive the spirit of Dirty Harry?
Men With Guns
Written and Directed by John Sayles1997
Sayles' reward, I imagine, after the runaway success of Lone Star, was somehow getting funding to make this political drama about a wealthy doctor (Federico Luppi, from Cronos), who journeys through an unnamed Latin American country in search of several of his former students who may have fallen victim to guerillas, the "Men with Guns" of the title. This film is never less than intelligent (except maybe for the scenes involving a couple of dorky American tourists, played by Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody) and I was engrossed throughout. An extended flashback involving a renegade priest (Damián Alcázar) is a dazzling example of Sayles at his best. Still, at nearly two hours, Men With Guns is hopelessly bloated, and it suffers from the didacticism that mars all of Sayles' films I've seen. A rewarding experience, but not something I'd particularly want to see again.
Primary Colors
Written by Elaine MayDirected by Mike Nichols
1998
Simply as an impersonation, John Travolta's turn as Gov. Jack Stanton, the down-home antihero of this adaptation of the infamous bestseller by "Anonymous," is a marvel. He's got Clinton's physical appearance and mannerisms down cold, and upon them he builds a sly comic performance that provides the chewy center this entertaining but sometimes hysterical movie needs. May's script, which I've heard stays very close to the source, doesn't shy away from the more unseemly aspects of Stanton's character, but all the same it clearly idealizes him; he's a "man of the people," for better and for worse. Wishy-washy as "Primary Colors" is, though, it's undeniably exciting to see a Hollywood movie that's complex, intelligent, and definitely not aimed at 12-year old boys. Standouts in the large cast include Billy Bob Thornton (who else?) as the Carville character, and Kathy Bates, who, despite being forced to carry the torch of Hollywood liberalism single-handedly, chews the scenery with gusto.
The Newton Boys
Written and Directed by Richard Linklater1998
I guess it was inevitable; Linklater, one of my favorite working filmmakers (and my new neighbor) made a movie that's just okay. The Newton Boys were the most successful bank robbers in history, but what I think attracted him to the material was the 1920s setting. The movie opens promisingly with silent film-inspired titles and a delightful attention to period, but it soon becomes repetitive, slight, and--this is a first for Linklater--conventional. Its good-natured charm, though, lasts even through the closing credits, which feature a Johnny Carson interview with an aging real-life Newton Boy. The actors playing the brothers (Matthew McConaughey, Skeet Ulrich, Ethan Hawke, and Vincent D'Onofrio) don't have much to work with, though McConaughey has some moments, and Dwight Yoakum, playing an explosives expert named Brentwood Glasscock, deftly steals scenes.
The Big One
Written and Directed by Michael Moore1997
In Moore's first documentary, the much-heralded Roger & Me, he came up with a dynamite hook: his quixotic quest for an audience with GM CEO Roger Smith. The Big One, though in many ways similar to Roger & Me, is structured around Moore's signing tour for his book "Downsize This!", and it meanders a little. Moore's trademark badgering of corporate lowlifes (and, in by far the film's best bit, one bigwig: Nike CEO Phil Knight, whose wife, a fan of Moore's, talked him into a meeting), is on display, but much of the other material, like Moore's impromptu duet with Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, is low-grade filler. The look of the film, shot (not very well) on video, only adds to the maddening lack of focus. Even worse is the fact that Moore, never exactly humble, practically places himself on an altar. Still, his politics are impeccable and he's a very funny guy, and there are enough good moments to put it over. And hey, anyone who can convince Miramax to give half their profits to the city of Flint, MI has my $6.50.
Sonatine
Written and Directed by Takeshi Kitano1993
The second film by Kitano (or "Beat" Takeshi, as he's known in Japan) to be released in the U.S. this year, though it was made four years before Hana-bi, this laconic actioner is both more and less than that near-masterpiece. It feels somewhat more grittily honest and the hyped-up violence didn't bother me as much, yet it's much less visually and rhythmically assured, and ultimately less satisfying. The narrative at first moves in fits and starts, and is difficult to follow, but the second half of the film, in which a group of gangsters literally wait on a remote beach for forty-five minutes of screen time, contains some remarkable moments, most notably a pixillated sequence that admittedly may not be for all tastes. Sonatine definitely proves, however, that Kitano is both a great tough guy and a deft physical comedian; my admiration remained even after a conclusion that's disturbingly similar to Hana-bi's.
City of Angels
Written by Dana StevensDirected by Brad Silberling
1998
Theoretically, I still believe there's nothing wrong with remakes, but it's getting harder and harder to argue with my personal devil who believes that all American remakes of European films are horrible. This one, which is a loose remake of Wim Wenders' exquisite Der Himmel über Berlin, is probably worse than Point of No Return and Diabolique. It's about a love affair between a surgeon (changed from a trapeze artist in the original and played by Meg Ryan) and an angel (Nicolas Cage), and, as you might imagine, it takes the most precious of Wenders and his co-screenwriter Peter Handke's ideas and turns them into a sickeningly pretentious and sentimental display of cheap pop-mysticism. City of Angels also has the dubious distinction of containing the worst performance by Nicolas Cage I've seen; I don't know what he was thinking--it's as if Silberling told him to think of a puppy who's been ripped from it's mother. Yuck.
Kurt and Courtney
Directed by Nick Broomfield1998
This documentary, an investigation into the death of Kurt Cobain, is sloppy, irresponsible, and a journalistic travesty. Broomfield (Fetishes, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam), who we follow throughout the film, is shallow, biased, and a terrible interviewer. And much of it is amusing but smug material about how our intrepid director deals with Courtney Love's attempts to sabatoge the project. Still, Kurt and Courtney is compulsively watchable; its easily one of the most entertaining films of the year. Chock full of memorable characters--to name a few: aging new waver and Love's former boyfriend Rozz Rezabek; Love's wacko father; and a portly "S&M rocker" (whatever that is) named El Duce, who claims to have been hired by Love to murder Cobain--the mystery is nonetheless never solved, though the Broomfield does a solid job trashing Love. A guilty pleasure.
Two Girls and A Guy
Written and Directed by James Toback1997
Much was made of the fact that self-destructive actor Robert Downey Jr. received a temporary release from the slammer to act in this three-character, one-set, mostly improvised gab-fest, and he proves he's quite good at playing a self-absorbed actor. There's a long early sequence that's Downey solo, and it's a delight. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie stinks. It tries desperately to be "provocative" and "timely," but I wager you'll find more thoughtful analyses of modern relationships in the latest issue of Cosmo. The high-concept is that two women (Heather Graham and Natasha Wagner) discover that they've been dating the same man (Downey), who has been lying to each of them for months, and confront him in his fancy loft. Much banal trash-talking ensues, until we discover that . . . hey! the two girls are just as deceitful and egostistical as the guy! Toback does all he can to humiliate Graham (in a ludicrous and pandering sex scene) and Wagner (whose character is constantly being made fun of).
The Spanish Prisoner
Written and Directed by David Mamet1998
Mamet returns to the Hitchcockian splendors of his first movie as director, 1987's House of Games, in this engrossing but ultimately empty hall of mirrors. Everything's in place: the everyman hero (Cambell Scott), the sinister con-man (Steve Martin, in probably his best performance ever), the McGuffin (a top-secret formula), crackling Mametian dialogue, and a plot about which "nothing's as it seems" is an understatement. Most of the criticisms I've read about this movie focus on the performance of Rebecca Pidgeon (who's, not so incedentally I think, Mamet's wife), and some glaring implausabilities in the plot. I must confess that neither of these elements bothered me; I thought Pidgeon's stylization worked, and though abc and I gleefully picked apart the plot afterwards, I fell for it completely as I was watching it. Much more damaging to me was the crushingly cheap and disappointing conclusion. If this and last year's Wag the Dog, which Mamet co-wrote, are any indication, the guy has trouble finishing.
The Butcher Boy
Written by Neil Jordan and Patrick McCabeDirected by Neil Jordan
1998
This disturbing and sometimes surreal examination of a how a troubled small-town Irish lad named Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens) becomes a murderer, based on the well-regarded novel by McCabe, is Jordan's best work since The Crying Game, though it's non-stop energy eventually becomes wearying. Owens, who's never acted before, gives one of the best child performances I've ever seen, and the supporting cast, including Stephen Rea and Aisling O'Sullivan as Francie's parents, and Alan Boyle as his best friend, is nearly as good. Impeccably crafted and crafty, the movie is almost too successful in explaining how Francie's environment drives him over the edge. Some unfortunate cariactures (a pedophile priest and a vicious biddy played by Milo O'Shea and Fiona Shaw) stack the deck a bit, and the fantasy sequences maybe could have been trimmed. Still, it's a funny and moving, albeit exhausting, ride.
He Got Game
Written and Directed by Spike Lee1998
Lee's latest "joint" is an ambitious account of a talented and sought-after high-school basketball star with the unfortunate name of Jesus Shuttlesworth (real-life NBAer Ray Allen). Jesus' estranged father Jake (Denzel Washington), who's serving time for accidentally killing his wife, is let out for a week by a wily politician who wants him to get Jesus to sign with his (the politician's) alma mater, a place called Big State. The father-son drama never really takes off; the characters are enigmas and the acting is uninspired (Allen is charismatic but definitely lacks chops and Washington sleepwalks through his role). The depiction of Jesus' many temptations as he's being recruited by sleazy college programs, is sensationalistic, dishonest, and ultimately pointless. And the less said about a subplot involving Jake's relationship with a hooker (Mila Jovovich--guess what her heart's made out of?), the better. The movie looks great and has an interesting Aaron Copeland-Public Enemy soundtrack, but the whole thing's covered with a putrid air of self-importance and mysogyny. This inexplicably got good reviews, but it's my least favorite Lee film by far (yes, I even liked the uneven but endearingly kooky Girl 6 more, though I admit the Prince soundtrack helped a lot).
Character
Written by Mike van Diem, Laurens Geels, and Ruud van MegenDirected by Mike van Diem
1997
This competent but unremarkable Dutch drama, like almost all of the winners of the Best Foreign Film Oscar in the past decade, is the kind of foreign film that people who don't have much exposure to foreign film probably think all foreign films are like. In other words it's a painfully sincere period piece that's slightly more dour, racy and "intellectual" than it's hypothetical Hollywood counterpart would be. That the plot doesn't involve a cute child (a la 1997 and 1995 winners Kolya and Burnt By the Sun) is somewhat of a consolation, but do yourself a favor and skip this and see one of the many good foreign films that will grace your local art theaters this year (like, say, Mother and Son or Taste of Cherry or Fireworks or Funny Games or Marius et Jeannette or Western or . . .).
I Think I Do
Written and Directed by Scott Sloan1997
This lightweight farce about a wedding that brings together several college chums, including a soap-opera writer (Alexis Arquette) who can't get over his crush on his supposedly straight former roommate (Christian Maelan), is good-natured enough, but can't seem to break out of sitcom-land, where every character's a bit kooky and has the perfect one-liner for every occasion. Despite some amusing moments and pretty good performances by the large cast, Sloan's pedestrian direction and predictable script eventually had me shifting in my seat and eyeing the exits longingly. There's a reason sitcoms only last thirty minutes.
The Horse Whisperer
Written by Eric Roth and Richard LaGraveneseDirected by Robert Redford
1998
Everything is in place here--sumptuous outdoor cinematography (by Robert Richardson), an inspirational but rarely maudlin storyline, and beautiful performances from the leads (Redford, Kristin Scott-Thomas, and Scarlett Johansson)--yet this liesurely adaptation of Nicholas Evans' bestselling novel somehow left me cold. The romance between Redford and Scott-Thomas is never very believeable, and in the film's obsessive need to be old-fashioned and "mythic" Redford loses sight of the human drama. The movie would definitely have benefited from the lack of pretension that Clint Eastwood brought to the similar (and LaGravenese-scripted) Bridges of Madison County. I can't really say I was bored during The Horse Whisperer's two-and-a-half-odd hours, but about all I can remember now are those Montana skies.
Dancer, Texas Pop. 81
Written and Directed by Tim McCanlies1998
Four East Texas buddies struggle with a group decision to whittle their hometown's population down to 77 by headin' to L.A. after graduation--a situation much lamented by the locals--in this earnest drama by first-timer McCanlies. It's not only the characters here that are clichés (Breckin Meyer plays the everyman-hero, Peter Facinelli the hunk, Eddie Mills the farmboy, and Ethan Embry the nerd); damn near everything in this film is unapoligetically twice-baked. I suppose it's also a cliché to compare movies like this to after-school specials, but it fits that description to a tee (sorry). Some people must like it, though, because it's local run has almost hit the six month mark. Texas for ya.
Sliding Doors
Written and Directed by Peter Howitt1997
A young advertising exec named Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow with her Emma accent), just fired from her job, splits into two "versions" of herself on her way home. One Helen makes the train, meets the appealing James (John Hannah), and catches her live-in boyfriend Gerry (John Lynch) with another woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn). The second Helen misses the train, doesn't meet James, and doesn't catch Gerry. I've no doubt an interesting movie could be made from this premise (a more accessible spin on Kieslwski's La Double vie de Veronique), but Howitt apparently was so excited about the pitch he forgot to write a script. As a romantic comedy, this is about the most boring, perfunctory stuff imaginable. Howitt doesn't even follow through with the intriguing implications of his central conceit; the movie's pretty much just two separate stories with the same characters. Kids don't try this at home: James recites Monty Python sketches to impress women.
Bulworth
Written by Warren Beatty and Jeremy PikserDirected by Warren Beatty
1998
Quite conceivably one of the strangest, how-the-hell-did-they-get-that-made? movies ever to come out of Hollywood, this energetic farce, about a disillusioned liberal senator (Beatty) who takes out a hit on himself, allowing him to ignore the niceties of political rhetoric and speak (or rather, rap--badly) from his heart, makes the politics of Primary Colors look like those of Forest Gump by comparison; unfortunately, it also makes the sprawling Colors look like Detour when it comes to narrative economy. Beatty performance is a comic marvel and though his ideas aren't exactly radical, I was grinning throughout at the sheer audacity of the project--well, at least until an unfortunate subplot involving a not-quite-a-character played by Halle Berry takes over the film in the last 45 minutes. By turns brilliantly funny and appallingly sloppy, and maybe just a wee bit patronizing, Bulworth is nontheless a fascinating mess, and yeah, a fun time at the movies.
Chinese Box
Written by Jean-Claude Carrière and Larry GrossDirected by Wayne Wang
1997
A suitably feverish drama set during Hong Kong's transition from British to Chinese rule, with three international superstars (Jeremy Irons, Gong Li, and Maggie Cheung) and a passable Christopher Doyle imitation by cinematographer Vilko Filac (Underground), Chinese Box is nevertheless a mess, and not a very entertaining one. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, but I suspect it has something to do with the film being entirely too conceptual; it's about the historical event rather than about the characters, who are little more than walking symbols. Of the three leads, only Cheung (Irma Vep), as a punkish street urchin, manages to find a bit of life under the metaphors. Gong (Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern), who I think is one of the best actresses on the planet, turns in a flailing disaster of a performance. I'm holding Wang (Smoke, The Joy Luck Club) responsible.
The Last Days of Disco
Written and Directed by Whit Stillman1998
Well, you can't say Whit Stillman doesn't know how to market his product. By simply setting much of the action of his latest talk-a-thon in a Disco in the early 80s, he's almost guaranteed heavy media attention. That said, casual fans of Boogie Nights and Saturday Night Fever are likely to be a bit disappointed—like the unfortunate soul who rents Exotica looking for the soft-core action promised by the video box. Not that the music isn't great, mind you, and in great abundance (and Abba-free, and used much more intelligently than in, say, Muriel's Wedding). It's just that Stillman uses his setting as a backdrop for . . . a Whit Stillman confused-preppies-in-love comedy.
Not that that's a bad thing. It's certainly amusing to watch Stillman's coat-and-tied post-debs (in some cases literally the same characters that populated his previous two features, Metropolitan and Barcelona) slither self-consciously to Chic tunes amid body-painted revelers. And Stillman geets some mileage out of hallmarks of the era like coke-snorting, VD and Jennifer Beals. But if what you want is period detail, decadence and crazed dancin', you'd better look elsewhere.
If you want witty repartee, however, you've come to the right place. Last Days of Disco has quite a bit of plot, actually, but it's always secondary to character development and dialogue. The movie follows two recent college grads—quiet, perceptive Alice (Chloë Sevigny) and bitchy Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale)—as they "slave away" at low-level New York publishing jobs while dancing their night away at a nameless, hard-to-get-into club. Their sometimes-tenuous group of friends includes Des (Stillman regular Christopher Eigeman), a Harvard dropout who works at the club; Jimmy (MacKenzie Astin), his advertising-exec friend; and Josh (Matthew Keeslar), a mysterious former schoolmate of Des' who's now an assistant D.A.
What we see these characters do, mostly, is talk. Stillman has an instantly recognizable dialogue style; his characters speak in the kind of impossibly eloquent sentences poor saps like me wish they could muster up in social situations. Whether they're discussing the death of the 60s ideal or what kind of drink to order, the dialogue has an attention to rhythm largely missing in modern movies (the glaring exception being David Mamet's work). I was, however, a little ambivalent about the scene where the characters discuss the social message of Lady and the Tramp. (It got the biggest laugh from the preview audience I was with, and I realize it's thematically pertinent, and I know Stillman pioneered these pop-culture digressions, but come on, haven't we heard this stuff in about a hundred different movies since Reservoir Dogs? ). Still, the chatter throughout is so good that it's almost annoying when the story shifts into high gear near the end of the movie with a subplot about alleged illegalities at the club.
Part of the credit for making the dialogue work has to go to the actors. Stillman has assembled his best ensemble yet for this movie. Sevigny brings an incredible honesty to the role of Alice; she's a complete natural. I like the fact that Stillman isn't afraid to deal with petty cruelty, and Beckinsale, almost unrecognizable from her previous role in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing, isn't afraid to make Charlotte as slyly abrasive as possible without losing our sympathies.
What really makes this movie an improvement over Barcelona, though, is Stillman's evolving sense of detail. He's clearly become a better director, visually. The club scenes are a lot of fun, the dancing, while low-key, has an undeniable charm, and there are a number of beautifully observed wordless moments. The scene where Alice seduces an acquaintance named Tom (Robert Sean Leonard), for instance, is an absolute classic.
Stillman is often criticized for his exclusively bourgeois characters and conservative viewpoint, and while I agree to a point (I mean, does every male character have to be a Harvard grad?), I think he's just following the old "write what you know" truism. It's theoretically annoying to hear so much whining from characters who have so much, but Stillman's so seroius and thoughtful that there's rarely even a hint of smarminess. And, hey—I, for one, would hate to see a Stillman white-trash hit-man character.
Wild Man Blues
Directed by Barbara Kopple1998
Oscar-winner Kopple (Harlan County, U.S.A., American Dream) slums big-time in this incredibly insipid hagiography of Woody Allen on tour in with his jazz band in Europe. Fans of New Orleans-style jazz may find it enjoyable, I guess, but anyone looking for insight on Allen and "the infamous Soon-Yi Previn" (even out of morbid curiosity) will be sorely disappointed. Supposedly Kopple had final cut, but from the way Allen constantly plays to the camera to the emphasis on his gushing European fans, one has to wonder. Well-made, but utterly toothless.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Written by Terry Gilliam & Tony Grisoni and Tod Davies & Alex CoxDirected by Terry Gilliam
1998
More of an assault on the senses than a movie, Gilliam (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys) relentlessly tries to find the visual equivalent of a bad trip in this (apparently pretty faithful) adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's infamous book. Whether he succeeds is a question better left to others, but after two hours of distortion, hallucination 'n' messy aftermath, I ended up more impressed than involved--the intended effect, no doubt. Johnny Depp (as Thompson's doppleganger Raoul Duke) provides an extremely stylized impersonation of Thompson that I think works beautifully. Benicio Del Toro, as Duke's unctious lawyer Dr. Gonzo, is excess personified; his performance succeeds only to the extent that he nauseates the audience. (A protracted bathtub sequence involving Del Toro may actually be more disgusting than the bathtub scene in Gummo, which is quite a feat.)
The Truman Show
Written by Andrew NiccolDirected by Peter Weir
1998
That this movie had the media stumbling over itself to provide the most outrageous hyperbole ("The Movie of the Decade!" proclaimed Entertainment Weekly, or was that Newsweek?) was to be expected, I guess. What I don't understand is all the otherwise level-headed critics who went gonzo for this muddled, saccharine, preachy, cynical, and poorly-executed exercise in high-concept. The central idea--that a man named Truman (Carrey) is, unknowingly, the star of a 24-hour TV show--is dynamite, but it's not really probed in a satisfying way; we never learn, for instance, whether viewers are treated to Truman showering or urinating or (gasp) having sex. This is nitpicking, I know, but it's typical of the film's (and indeed, Hollywood's) refusal to play fair, to do something with its clever conceit instead of exploiting it for cheap effects and an "inspirational" ending. I mean, can anyone explain to me why a thin column of fake rain follows Truman around, other than to provide us with an arresting image? Carrey's horrible performance, is, heaven help us, being mentioned for year-end awards. The filmmakers apparently thought his mugging (which is only slightly toned down from the Ace Ventura movies) was justified, though I don't believe for a second that someone in Truman's situation would act like Jim Carrey. In the "serious" parts his acting is hopelessly shallow; he's got the puppy-dog/Robin-Williams-with-a-beard look down pat, but not much else. If he nabs an Oscar it'll be the worst winning performance since . . . well, Robin Williams' last year.
A Friend of the Deceased
Written by Andrei KurkovDirected by Vyacheslav Krishtofovich
1997
A Ukrainian film about (you guessed it) the unsettling transformation from Socialism to Capitalism, this engrossing but unspectacular black comedy follows an intellectual translator (Alexandre Lazarev) who finds himself obsolete in the new business culture. Despondent after his wife leaves him, he takes a contract out on himself. When he later decides he wants to live--after meeting (you guessed it) a spunky prostitute (Yelena Korikova)--he must hire a second hit-man to take out the first. Much of this is intelligent and witty, and I'm sure there's a load of cultural subtext I missed out on, but it's so low-key that it almost disappeared from my memory after a few weeks.
Can't Hardly Wait
Written and Directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan1998
Maybe I'm being too hard on this genial teen comedy, but I'm having trouble reconciling its basic good-naturedness with its shameless and cynical recycling of sub-John Hughes clichés, its pandering soundtrack, its boneheaded writing, and its PG-13 timidity. The fact that the character played by Ethan Embry (who earlier this year was in the equally platitudinous Dancer Texas, Pop. 81) is supposed to be the most "genuine" guy around when the only possible reason he could be in love with the awful Jennifer Love Hewitt character is because she looks like Jennifer Love Hewitt, is typical of the film's lack of depth. I'm relieved this wasn't a hit--the last thing we need is another crappy teen genre being revived.
Junk Mail
Written by Jonny Halberg and Pål SletauneDirected by Pål Sletaune
1997
This Norwegian black comedy about an unscrupulous mailman (Robert Skjærstad) who breaks into the apartment of a deaf woman (Andrine Sæther), only to become involved in her underworld dealings, is absorbing and mordantly funny for a while, but its aimlessness and frustratingly open conclusion eventually take their toll. More notable, perhaps, is that the film is up there with Gummo among the dirtiest (literally) movies I've ever seen. Vomit, stained walls, and unwashed dishes all make memorable appearances, and our hero's personal hygeine would probably get him canned at even the worst fast-food joint. Even the cinematography is grimy--the images seem to be covered with a thin film of filth. Either that or Oslo is the dirtiest city in the world.
Under the Skin
Written and Directed by Carine Adler1997
Two sisters, rebellious Iris (Samantha Morton) and domestic Rose (Claire Rushbrook), try to deal with the sudden death of their mother (Rita Tushingham) in this edgy drama from first-timer Adler. The film ultimately feels honest, but Adler's script is short on ideas--the entire film becomes a monotonous portrait of Iris' sexual degradation. Morton gives the kind of performance that critics call "brave," which is really a code for "she gets naked and humiliates herself a lot." She's quite good, but her shrill energy becomes seriously wearying after a while. Speaking of wearying, the vertiginous cinematography, by Barry Ackroyd, is proof that a lot of unmotivated hand-held work doesn't automatically make you Christopher Doyle or Robby Müller.
The Object of My Affection
Written by Wendy WassersteinDirected by Nicholas Hytner
1998
An underrated romantic comedy about a woman (Jennifer Aniston) who falls in love with her gay roommate (Paul Rudd), eventually asking him to act as a father to her unborn child. Someone forced me to go to this movie, and I was quite surprised by its ambition and emotional intensity; this isn't Nora Ephron fluff. Though it can't quite answer the provocative questions it raises, and occasionally resorts to sitcom banalities, this is a swell time at the movies with some solid acting by Aniston and Rudd and, in a small but poignant role, Nigel Hawthorne, who previously worked with Hytner in The Madness of King George.
Clockwatchers
Written by Jill and Karen SprecherDirected by Jill Sprecher
1997
This enjoyable comedy, from first-time director Sprecher, about four temporary workers (Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow, and Allana Ubach) whose friendship dissolves under the strain of office politics, suffers from an inane voiceover and an increasingly strained second half, but scores anyway thanks to its conceptual coup (finally, a movie about temps!), and some very strong acting, especially by Posey, who gives possibly her best performance ever, and Kudrow, who, after Romy and Michele's High School Reunion and The Opposite of Sex, again delivers an intriguingly dysfunctional variation on her Friends character. I've read a lot of complaints that the movie's a bit too successful at capturing tempdom's tedium. Well, call me a masochist, but I actually would have liked to see a more naturalistic approach with less comic exaggeration. I mean, that kooky office supply guy was about as believable as a Manpower employee who spends all day composing movie reviews for his web site.
Mulan
Written by Rita Hsiao, Chris Sanders, Philip LaZebnik, Raymond Singer, and Eugenia Bostwick-SingerDirected by Terry Bancroft and Barry Cook
1998
On a certain level, this latest animated feature from Disney--which is based on a Chinese folktale about a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to replace her ailing father in the army--is enormously appealing; the drawing style is distinctive, the computer-aided animation is at times stunning, and Mulan herself is probably the strongest main character of the current Disney "renaissance." On the other hand, the manic comedy relief, with Eddie Murphy doing his best Robin Williams as a pint-sized dragon, and the half-hearted songs are annoying and feel tacked on simply to make it a Disney picture. Which is the problem. No matter how well-crafted, it's impossible to forget that these yearly kiddie behemoths (and, sadly, the competing animated films from other studios) are first and foremost designed to follow the formula and appeal to the widest possible audience. For me, they never escape the blandness that necessitates.
The X Files
Written by Chris CarterDirected by Rob Bowman
1998
Pretty good special effects and a smattering of profanity aren't enough to translate the popular TV show to the big screen in this yawner, which is likely to disappoint fans and newcomers alike. As an action movie or a thriller or a horror movie or a sci-fi movie it's below average. In context, it's simply a two-hour, run-of-the-mill "mythology episode" that, just like the TV show does every other week, promises to divulge secrets but pulls back at the last minute and reveals . . . absolutely nothing.
Cousin Bette
Written by Lynn Siefert & Susan TarrDirected by Des McAnuff
1998
Poor Jessica Lange seems to be having trouble finding parts lately. She's quite good as the title character in this barely passable Balzac adaptation about a spinster plotting revenge on the family that spurned her, but she can't quite overcome the movie's frenzied machinations. I'm glad it's played for bawdy laughs (and features a hilariously naughty Elisabeth Shue as a cunning courtesan), but in the end it succumbs to a problem typical of more standard literary adaptations--too many clipped, move-the-plot-foreward scenes, the by-product, I assume, of a foolhardy attempt to get the whole novel on screen. It's too fast--the movie, and Lange, have absolutely no room to breathe.
Wilde
Written by Julian MitchellDirected by Brian Gilbert
1997
This well-meaning Oscar Wilde biopic features a wonderful lead performance by Stephen Fry (Cold Comfort Farm), whose physical resemblance to Wilde is uncanny, and very good support from the dependable Jude Law (Gattaca, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), as Wilde's tragic love Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. Everything else, a little gay erotica notwithstanding, is disapointingly standard-issue. Perhaps Gilbert and Mitchell's worst decision was to seemingly include as many of Wilde's witticisms as possible, which often turns the character into a dull aphorism machine. Wilde, and Fry, deserve better.
Hav Plenty
Written and Directed by Christopher Scott Cherot1997
Without a doubt the least technically accomplished movie I've seen this year, this playful romantic comedy is a sometimes engaging novelty that never quite overcomes its lack of polish or the ego of its writer-director-producer-star. Cherot plays the sardonic hero, Lee Plenty, an unemployed writer type who's who lives in his car and is in love with Hav (Chenoa Maxwell), the rich, mercurial beauty he's house-sitting for. Cherot will try anything--including talking directly to the audience and tacking on a coy movie-within-a-movie ending--but what left a bad taste in my mouth was his character's smug, detached superiority as he spurns the various attractive, hysterical women who throw themselves at him.
Les Misérables
Written by Rafael YglesiasDirected by Billie August
1998
abc, who's well-versed in Les Miz-ology, hated it, but I found this version of the Hugo warhorse mightily effective as melodrama. Maybe I was moved only because I was unfamiliar with the story (or because I'd had a drink or two there at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema), but I can't see why the strong acting (kudos to Liam Neeson as Valjean and Geoffrey Rush as Javert) and the solid, unpretentious direction of August (on the rebound from Smilla's Sense of Snow and The House of the Spirits) wouldn't win over even the most ardent supporters of the musical. It ain't subtle, but, as a literary period piece, I'll take it over Mrs. Dalloway or Cousin Bette anyday.
Post-coïtum, animal triste
Written by Santiago Amigorena, Jean-Louis Richard, Brigitte Roüan and Guy ZylbersteinDirected by Brigitte Roüan
1997
This interesting failure, about a fortyish publisher (director-writer-star Roüan) whose comfortable life is thrown into turmoil by her obsessive love affair with a much younger man (Boris Terral), is above all a very French movie, with all the clichéd positives (strong acting, nice attention to detail, frankness) and negatives (pretentiousness, mainly) that term carries with it. Roüan certainly gives her all, but her film basically consists of watching someone get emotionally pummelled for 100 minutes. It's edifying, perhaps, but a bit of an ordeal.
High Art
Written and Directed by Lisa Cholodenko1998
This charming and mostly successful indie from first-time director Cholodenko follows Syd (Radha Mitchell), an ambitious young editor at a hip New York photography rag whose life is turned upside-down by her induction into the drug-addled, bohemian lifestyle of her upstairs neighbor, a burned-out photographer named Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy). The ensuing love affair between Syd and Lucy is sexy and poignant, but the best scenes in the film detail Lucy and her friends' self-destructive ennui. Cholodenko and her cinematographer, Tami Reiker, do a wonderful job capturing the seductive sheen hiding (just barely) the crippling malaise of their decadent scene--one can see why Syd is so easily sucked in. Less successful are the movie's rote jabs at the New York art world and the crushingly disappointing conclusion, which is a major mistake that would completely bury a lesser film. As for the acting, Mitchell and Sheedy are very good, but Patricia Clarkson all but steals the movie as Lucy's jilted junkie lover, Greta.
I Went Down
Written by Conor McPhersonDirected by Paddy Breathnach
1997
Apparently the biggest grossing independent Irish film ever, this pleasant but forgettable comic-noir didn't do a lot of business here--despite the familiarity of its generic elements, its charm is character-based, elusive and very low-key. What little plot there is concerns two bumbling small-time hoods (Brendan Gleeson, from The Butcher Boy and The General and neophyte Peter McDonald) who are coerced by a crime boss (Tony Doyle) to uh, pick up some money or something. From here the movie moves genially from digression to digression, and while it admirably takes more interest in fleshing out the main characters than in staging elaborate shoot-outs and botched robberies, and it's funny and moving in places, I'm afraid the whole thing doesn't add up to much.
The Opposite of Sex
Written and Directed by Don Roos1998
I have a very conflicted opinion of this relentlessly clever black comedy about a white trash hellion named Dedee (Christina Ricci) who destroys the lives of her brother (Martin Donovan), his lover (Ivan Sergei) and their friend (Lisa Kudrow). On the one hand the actors are clearly having a ball, and I can't deny that the film contains several uproarious one-liners. (One of Dedee's laments re her mother had me in the aisles. I even laughed just now thinking of it.) On the other hand, I often found the film to be nothing more than a smug screenwriting exercise liberally sprinkled with cheap sit-com cynicism. Roos, a screenwriter-turned director (who previously wrote Single White Female, Boys on the Side and the Diabolique remake, all of which are awful) is able to have his cake, etc. as his misanthropic and homophobic protagonist learns her lessons just in time for the PC ending. It's entertaining an' all--just a bit dubious.
There's Something About Mary
Written by Ed Decter & John J. Strauss and Bobby Farrelly & Peter FarrellyDirected by Bobby and Peter Farrelly
1998
I saw this raucous comedy at a preview screening with a packed house, and none of us (except maybe Harry Knowles, who was a few rows up) had much of an idea what we were in store for. I'd seen the trailer a few times, and was mildly pro-Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, but I was not prepared for the depths the Farrelly brothers could sink to, given an R-rating. I have never seen an audience laugh as hard as they did that night; I'm not sure, but I think a few people (thankfully, not Harry) were literally rolling in the aisles. I eventually gave in as well. I think the Farrellys' "genius" (if one can call it that) is the way they always go a little bit farther with a gag than you think they will. I don't think getting one's manhood caught in a zipper is inherently very funny (a lot of people do, I know), but they let this scene go on for about twenty minutes and then stick in their outrageously funny insert. I'm not claiming the Farrelly's are the saviors of film comedy--this movie clearly has sections that wouldn't be out of place in some Chris Farley or Adam Sandler piece-of-crap--but its certainly something to see, and, for better or worse, probably the defining comedy of the 90s. And I almost forgot the cast--Ben Stiller, Matt "I work with ree-tards" Dillon and especially the invaluable Cameron Diaz, are just perfect.
Out of Sight
Written by Scott FrankDirected by Steven Soderbergh
1998
Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape, King of the Hill), fresh off the endearingly strange, no-budget Schizopolis, proves he's one of the best American directors working right now with this enormously entertaining Elmore Leonard adaptation. As much chemistry as George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez have (and they are the most memorable screen couple I've seen in a long time), and despite the stellar supporting cast (which includes Ving Rhames, Dennis Farina, Don Cheadle, Catherine Keener and Steve Zahn), it's Soderbergh (along with cinematographer Elliot Davis) who constantly steals the show with unmotivated freeze-frames, deft chronological juggling, out-there framing, and the judicious use of a dynamite soundtrack. He pulls out all the stops, and it's amazing that just about everything works. Only the familiarity of the material kept me from grading this even higher.
Mr. Jealousy
Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach1997
Baumbach's profoundly disappointing follow-up to the wonderful Kicking and Screaming is about a Manhattan substitute teacher (Eric Stoltz) who has trouble dealing with the fact that his new girlfriend (Annabella Sciorra) has had many previous lovers. The movie has serious problems following through with its strained premise, and it contains surpisingly few laughs, perhaps mainly due to Stoltz's lethargic performance. All one has to grab on to are the cute but half-baked Jules et Jim references and the great supporting cast, which includes Carlos Jacott, Bridget Fonda, and Chris Eigeman, who plays one of Sciorra's former beaus, a conceited writer, and all but saves the movie.
Lawn Dogs
Written by Naomi WallaceDirected by John Duigan
1997
This well-made and intermittently amusing "fable-like" drama concerns the unlikely friendship between a rebellious ten-year-old girl (Mischa Barton) who's recently had heart surgery and a poor but sexy loner (Sam Rockwell, from Box of Moonlight) who lives in a metal trailer in the woods and mows lawns for a living. This, of course, is the kind of relationship that, in movies like this, exists only to be misunderstood by cartoonish supporting characters, which in this case include the girl's suburban-grotesque parents, their gated community's rent-a-cop, and a couple of vacationing preppie punks. The movie has a nice visual sense and a terrific final shot and Barton and Rockwell are both pretty great, though Rockwell'd better be careful--he's dangerously close to cornering the market on kooky free-spirits that live in trailers. Nevertheless, it's probably the worst film I've seen by the crafty Duigan (Flirting, Sirens, The Leading Man). It's tiresome and mean-spirited (not to mention clichéd) in its critique of suburbia and it clearly breaks the Eleventh Commandment--you know, "Thou Shalt Not Be Overly Quirky." More like smashes it to smithereens, actually.
The Hanging Garden
Written and Directed by Thom Fitzgerald1997
This Canadian drama about a man (Chris Leavins) who returns home after a ten year absence only to be haunted by visions of his teenage struggle with obesity and homosexuality, has a cathartic power and nice performances by Leavins, Kerry Fox (An Angel at My Table), Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter) and Troy Veinotte, but the familiarity of its coming-of-age scenario and its bludgeoning portrait of yet another nasty, dysfunctional family eventually blunts its edge. This is Fitzgerald's debut, and his direction, though occasionally pretentious, shows some promise. I'll be first in line for his next feature.
Hands on a Hardbody, the Documentary
Directed by S.R. Bindler1996
This spectacularly entertaining little film documents a contest sponsered by a Longview, Texas auto dealership in which 24 contestants attempt to win a new Nissan hardbody pickup by keeping one gloved hand on the truck the longest. The movie functions as both a loving and hilarious portrait of a small town (director Bindler actually grew up in Longview) and a surprisingly suspenseful human drama. As the days (yes, days) go by and the group starts to thin out, the effects of sleep deprivation and boredom lead to a fittingly surreal climax. Shot cheaply on video, the film looks as terrible as Michael Moore's documentary The Big One, but that's easy to forgive when you've got characters this compelling. I particularly enjoyed Benny Perkins, former winner and self-appointed zen-master of the contest, and I'll never forget how Kelli Mangrum, a twenty-something student, drops out and walks off into the night like a ghost.
Smoke Signals
Written by Sherman AlexieDirected by Chris Eyre
1998
I must admit that the commercial and critical success of this maudlin, painfully sincere indie baffles me. The fact that it's billed as the first movie to be written, directed and co-produced by Native Americans doesn't diminish the fact that it's a boneheaded road movie sprinkled with innumerable "hey, we're Indians!" jokes and burdened with perhaps the most inane climax I've ever seen. How much longer are Sundance and Miramax going to clog my art theaters with this tripe?
Small Soldiers
Written by Ted Elliott, Zak Penn, Adam Rifkin, Terry Rossio, and Gavin ScottDirected by Joe Dante
1998
I must confess that I saw this blockbuster hopeful about warring groups of toys entirely on the strength of Jonathan Rosenbaum's four-star review in the Chicago Reader, in which he argues that it's a subversive masterpiece--a truly anti-war alternative to the pious Saving Private Ryan. Now, I've no doubt that Dante's heart is in the right place, and some of his satire and in-jokes are clever and funny, and the CGI effects are very good, and maybe Hollywood should make more films like this. But. The standard issue suburban kiddie-plot is slick and forgettable, and there's a sanitized feel to the whole project. Dante's able to get his licks in, but the movie quickly devolves into just another wise-cracking Summer Entertainment Machine.
À toute vitesse
Written by Catherine Corsini and Gaël MorelDirected by Gaël Morel
1996
I remember enjoying this French melodrama quite a bit, but I must admit that now, 5 1/2 months later, I can't for the life of me remember anything about it. Let me check the IMDb . . . oh, yes, it's about four French teens, one (Pascal Cervo) has just published a novel and neglects his girlfriend (Élodie Bouchez) who falls for his best friend (Stéphane Rideau), who is also the object of desire of a shy Algerian (Mezziane Bardadi). Shades of the André Téchiné's Les Roseaux sauvages are inescapable--Morel, Rideau, and Bouchez all starred in that great film--though this isn't in that league. It's nicely shot and acted, but it's a wisp of a movie that quickly floats away.
Saving Private Ryan
Written by Robert RodatDirected by Steven Spielberg
1998
Expertly marketed as a unprecedentedly "realistic" look at war, it's easy to forget that, after the brutal shock of the opening Omaha Beach sequence--a brilliantly visceral piece of filmmaking--this is a pretty conventional platoon movie, from the stock characters and predictable death scenes right on down to the precious Edith Piaf interlude. Just when you think Spielberg is going to tackle some moral ambiguities, conventional, reassuring notions of honor and sacrifice take center stage. And the repulsive, flag-waving glop of the frame story is shameless even for Spielberg. Very well shot (by Janusz Kaminski) and acted (by Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, and Jeremy Davies, among others), I have no problem recommending this movie; I just wish it lived up to the promise of its unforgettable first 45 minutes.
Henry Fool
Written and Directed by Hal Hartley1997
I've always found Hartley's deadpan antics almost unbearably precious, but this ambitious comedy--which follows an oddball garbageman named Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) who becomes a celebrity poet after he's encouraged to write by the title character (Thomas Jay Ryan), a homeless scalawag who's working on his own "confessions"--is wonderfully funny and completely original. Hartley's maddeningly mannered dialogue is still present, but it works here, perhaps because the philosophic noodling he's so fond of mostly comes out of the mouth of an appropriately garrulous poseur. Or maybe it's just because the performances by Urbaniak and Ryan are so damn good. I'm not sure what it all means, but it's strangeness is mesmerizing. It also contains one of the scenes of the year, a most memorable marriage proposal.
2 October 1998
CinemaTexas Short Film FestivalThree weeks ago, I semi-attended the CinemaTexas Short Film Festival and saw a few excellent experimental films like Martin Arnold's creepy Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy, the third in his series of films which trap Hollywood movies in endless repetition, and Jay Rosenblatt's creepy Human Remains, which briefly lays out the private lives of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, and Mao through old clips and first-person voiceovers. I also caught a show by the competiton Jurors, including, most notably, Chris Smith (American Job), who arrived with four delightful, if slight, short pieces (perversely, my favorite was Charlie Chimp, a three-minute frontal shot of one of those cymbal-crashing toy monkeys--with a twist), and Alison Maclean (Crush), who showed a very Austrailian (I think she's from N.Z. actually, but she was based in Sydney for a while) 1989 film called Kitchen Sink.
Richard Linklater had a packed house when he showed some of his favorite shorts (actually, in his introduction he admitted they were just films he hadn't seen in a while and wanted to see again) and I was amused at how uncompromisingly experimental the program was. It's amazing the outraged reaction experimental films can still provoke from an unsuspecting audience. It was like being in film school again, complete with the childish cretin behind me making noises to impress the girls next to him, who couldn't stop remarking, very loudly, that they couldn't believe they paid to see this. Apart from Chaplin's great One A.M., the show included some primo head-scratchers like Jim Kubalka's brutal Unsere Afrikareise, Gunvor Nelson's haunting My Name is Oona, and Shirley Clarke's Bridges Go Round, a stunning three-minute collage set to (in this version) some wonderful Jazz. The show was capped off by that ultimate crowd-pleaser, Michael Snow (Wavelength), with Breakfast (Table Top Dolly). Linklater impresses the hell out of me; though not a great public speaker, he knows his shit, and if you don't think that has anything to do with him being a great filmmaker, you should be forced to watch the entire Michael Snow oeuvre in one sitting.
Partly through my laziness, and partly through the festival's poor organization, these were the only programs I made it to. Each one started around a half-hour late and I got sick of it.
2 July, 1998
It looks like the first Austin Journal entry is going to be a rant. Last Friday, the Warner Brothers Festival of Classics came to the Arbor theater. It consisted of thirty films, shown over seven days, with a particular decade represented each day. The selection of films was strong, if a bit predictable, and I was looking forward to seeing some great classics, most of which I'd previously seen only on video, in newly-struck prints.
As I write this on the last day of the festival, the only films I've managed to see are The Exorcist, The Public Enemy, and The Maltese Falcon. Tonight I'd planned to catch Bonnie and Clyde, but I've just found out that Post-coitum, animal triste ends tonight so I'm going to see that instead. How, you might ask, out of these thirty classics, did I end up seeing a measly three?
Well, first of all, the scheduling was awful. The films were each screened only once, with four showing on weekdays and five on Saturday and Sunday. I currently work an 8 to 5 job, meaning that there was no way I could see the first two shows each weekday. Now, guess which decades were covered over the weekend, the only days when I could see all the screenings. That's right, the eighties and nineties. I'd seen nine of the ten films from these decades (The Color Purple was the odd man out) and seven on the big screen.
There were seven films I really wanted to see: The Searchers, Rebel Without a Cause, and A Clockwork Orange I'd only seen on crummy video copies, and Dial M For Murder, All the President's Men, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Exorcist I hadn't seen at all.
Of these seven, four showed before 5:00 on a weekday. The theater (or Warner Bros., I'm not sure) of course decided to show the wildly popular films at night, meaning the three (!) Kubricks, The Wild Bunch (which I'd already seen in 35mm), the two Bogarts, The Exorcist, Blade Runner, etc. I saw The Exorcist, and it was my fault I missed A Clockwork Orange (let's just say it had something to do with abc and seeing The Exorcist right before).
That leaves Rebel, which, apart from The Searchers (which I seriously considered calling in sick to work to see), was the one I was most looking forward to, on account of Nicholas Ray being a CinemaScope master an' all. I made it to the show, but the Arbor's screens are not wide enough to show films with a ratio of 2.55:1!. I knew they were small and I suspected this might happen, but the Arbor actually continued the show after projecting a sizeable chunk with the wrong lens and then with part of the image off the screen. The most amazing part was, from what I saw, only a few people walked out and demanded their money back, even though they had basically missed the first ten minutes and were seeing the left fourth of the image against a black curtain. The beleagured manager threw up her hands, "Well, the print was made in, like, the Fifties." Uhh . . .
So the festival was an utter disaster for me (good thing I didn't buy the $50 festival pass). The Public Enemy and The Maltese Falcon were good and solid, though Enemy was more primitive than I'd remembered and Falcon definitely drags a bit in the Sidney Greenstreet scenes. I didn't really like The Exorcist, which I found sloppy and silly, though I certianly understand why it invaded the consciousness of so many of my peers who saw it when very young. Oh, well, at least I have the Paramount theater, a great revival house which seems to do things right, to console me for the rest of the summer. Next week: Les Quatre-cents coups and Jules et Jim in widescreen!
