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 AT FIRST SIGHT. It's not a romantic comedy, it's not a
horror film, it's that mutant that lives somewhere in between.
It's in that special place where grown men dress like clowns and
mothers form better bonds with their daughters by dying. This
time the couple consists of the uncharismatic Virgil (Val Kilmer),
a blind man, and Amy (Mira Sorvino), his true love. She finds
a miracle cure that allows him to regain his vision, and they
hit many obstacles, such as maudlin music, Kilmer's distractingly
huge capped teeth, and bad dialogue. ("So this is what beautiful
looks like.") But when all is said and done, all those Coca-Cola
product placements Virgil can see don't mean a darn thing. Of
course not, because the best kind of seeing is not done with the
eyes, but with the heart. Please, take my word for it and stay
away from this genre-bending freak show.--Higgins
DANCING AT LUGHNASA. None of our reviewers can stand to
even be in the same multiplex as a Meryl Streep film, so we didn't
check this one out first hand. We understand it's set in 1930s
Ireland and involves Streep playing one of a group of unmarried
sisters awaiting the return of their brother from Africa. I'm
guessing that other critics will use the words "poignant"
and "affecting" in their reviews, and that Streep will
add a fanciful brogue to her catalogue of incompetently executed
accents. I get the creeps just thinking about it. --DiGiovanna
GLORIA. What a great movie: Gena Rowlands, as a fading
gangster moll, hooks up with a cute kid who's fleeing the same
gangsters. While this Little Miss Marker idea may seem
trite, Rowlands overwhelms every scene, completely engaging the
viewer with each raised eyebrow and wrinkled lip. John Cassavetes
quirky directing doesn't hurt, either, and while this is a much
more "mainstream" movie than Cassavetes' earlier work,
it still retains his improvisational sensibility and singular
camera style. Oh, wait a minute, this isn't that movie...it's
a lousy remake with Sharon Stone struggling to fill Gena Rowlands
shoes and Sydney Lumet's cowardly and conservative directorial
style dumbing down the more challenging Cassavetes approach. Damn.
--DiGiovanna
HI-LO COUNTRY. This boys-and-their-cattle film is a Cormac
McCarthy-esque (the sweet McCarthy of The Crossing, not
the twisted McCarthy of Blood Meridian) look at two men
(Woody Harrelson and Billy Crudup) who return from WWII to their
ranch lands and try to live a cowboy life that's fading into the
world of corporate farming. While the story is a bit obvious and
melodramatic (they're both in love with the same woman, who's
married to the factotum of the evil proto-corporate rancher),
Harrelson's performance is strong enough to hold attention. He's
just such a weird actor, playing an odd cross between his mass-murderer
role from Natural Born Killers and sweet, lovable "Woody"
from Cheers, that it's always interesting to watch his
wild mood swings and enormously overstated facial expressions.
Unfortunately, the female characters are treated like window dressing,
denied much in the way of screen time or good dialogue. In the
end, the cowboys themselves come across as less sexist than the
filmmakers, in that they make some effort to understand the women
they are attracted to and who are attracted to them. It's too
bad that director Stephen Frears and writer Walon Green don't
share this interest in women's inner lives, and can only give
us a beautifully photographed, slow and sad buddy film, which,
while not without rewards, could have been much richer in exploring
the relationships it backgrounds against the red skies and grasslands
of the Southwest. --DiGiovanna
HURLYBURLY. It's a common refrain of first-year film school
students that film is a "visual medium." They say this
whenever a talky picture comes their way as a means of dismissing
it without too much thought. What's missing from this little axiom
is that ever since the 1920s, film has also been an auditory medium...you
can verify this by going to just about any movie and listening
for noises, sounds and sweet airs. Hurlyburly is definitely
not a visual film; its 122 minutes are filled with almost endless
chatter, delivered at cocaine-frenzied pace by Sean Penn, Kevin
Spacey, Chazz Palminteri and Garry Shandling. Needless to say,
with a cast like that the performances are fabulous, and the David
Rabe-penned dialogue is up to the challenge these actors lay down.
Hurlyburly tells the story of four misogynistic, drug-addicted,
Hollywood players who lapse into rapid-fire philosophizing between
snorts of blow and meaningless sexual encounters with underage
runaways. Penn and Spacey are roommates and a kind of post-ethical
odd couple, with Spacey's cold demeanor and imperturbable impeccability
igniting Penn's hysterical bundle of male emotions. If verbal
acrobatics and Actor's Studio performances are your cup of tea,
Hurlyburly is probably your best bet amongst the current
crop of movies. On the other hand, if you're looking for a slow-moving
meditation on the imagery of early spring, you'd best shop elsewhere.
--DiGiovanna
IN DREAMS. It may be kind of early in the year to commit,
but my nomination for the best filmic wig of 1999 goes to the
one atop Robert Downey Jr.'s scalp. Sure, some will say it's bad,
even evil, but I cheer you on, brave little soldier. When Vivian
(Downey) wears this ambitious rug, it makes him want to rid us
of bad child actors and, more importantly, expose the false ideal
of the bourgeois family. Vivian enters career mom Claire's (Annette
Bening) head via her dreams and updates her on his latest murderous
adventures. Feeling her class status threatened, Claire attempts
to track him down so she can destroy his revolutionary thinking
and quit wearing the Communist reds he clothes her in in her nightmares.
It's nice to see an arty horror film, but it usually helps to
have more sympathy for the protagonist than the antagonist's wig.
This latest effort from Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) is
at the very least beautiful to watch. --Higgins
LITTLE VOICE. Jane Horrocks, probably best known for her
role as Bubbles on Absolutely Fabulous, stars in the filmic
version of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, a play written
to showcase her talent for imitating the singing voices of such
greats as Judy Garland and Shirley Bassey. The character "Little
Voice" is a soft-spoken, pastel-wearing introvert who's overshadowed
by her tawdry mum Mari (Brenda Blethyn), who shouts some of the
best dialog (such as referring to her lover's genitalia as "meat
and veg") and wears similarly boisterous outfits. Ray (Michael
Caine), Mari's man and a promoter for such class acts as the chubby
male strip crew "Take Fat," discovers her musical abilities
and attempts to exploit them in a sleazy nightclub. Little Voice
resists, supported only by her father's ghost and a pigeon-obsessed
telephone repairman (Ewan MacGregor). This simple and satisfying
story about discovering the importance of being heard is affectionately
directed by Mark Herman, and offers a host of excellent performances.--Higgins
SHE'S ALL THAT. A remake of every '80s teen film, which
would compete well with the best of them, if only I hadn't already
seen this story so many times. Popular boy loses girlfriend, accepts
bet to turn dorky girl into prom queen, falls in love with her.
Not a bad effort, but Patrick Dempsey's legacy is safe. --DiGiovanna
A SIMPLE PLAN. Director Sam Raimi takes the campy, violent
and juvenile sensibility that he honed to perfection on such films
as Evil Dead and Darkman, and such television productions
as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena, Warrior
Princess, and chucks it out the window for this subtle and
very grown-up film noir piece. An accountant (the omnipresent
Bill Paxton), his mentally challenged brother (the also kind of
omnipresent Billy Bob Thornton) and his brother's trashy, drunken
friend (the largely unknown Brent Briscoe) find four million dollars
inside a wrecked plane in a snow covered forest. They decide to
hide the money until they know whether the heat is on. In standard
noir fashion, double crosses, murders and intrigues ensue. The
script is, obviously, not terribly original; but it is perfectly
paced and plotted, a flawless rendition of this time-worn story.
And Bridget Fonda wears this incredible fake-pregnant-belly prosthesis...probably
the finest fake-belly prosthesis since they made the waif-like
Marlon Brando look fat in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Although
you should probably see it for the disturbing and evocative story
of ordinary evil, rather than for the fake-belly prosthesis. But
it's a really good fake-belly prosthesis. Really. --DiGiovanna
VARSITY BLUES. It's a whipped-cream bikini of a movie as
the football team at West Canaan High School goes wild in the
streets! Love, life and Kurt Vonnegut are all given cursory treatment
and meaningful stares as teens take over Texas, and their evil
football coach gets his comeuppance. James Van Der Beek of Dawson's
Creek (a show that made a friend of mine vomit when she heard
that one of the characters was named "Pacey") makes
his film debut as the little quarterback who could. Judging by
the giggling and aahing from the adolescent women in the theater,
he is cute. --DiGiovanna
WAKING NED DEVINE. Ah, the clever Irish. When they're not
plotting world domination or making those Tamagotchis and lederhosen
that they're so famous for, you can usually find them doing those
slithery, funky, dances to those crazy jungle beats. So, what
could be more fun than watching a village of 52 Irish persons
try to con the Irish National Lottery out of nearly seven million
Irish pounds ("pound" or "punt" is a zany
Irish word for 1.4695 dollars)? I'll tell you: nothing. Waking
Ned Devine is good, clean Irish fun, even if it does include
some shots of naked Irish men. Really old naked Irish men, so
don't get all excited. Naked old Irish people are in no way pornographic.
And Waking Ned Devine is full of non-naked fun and surprises,
too, like village intrigues, fake eulogies, pints of Guinness
and a swiftly moving plot that unfolds against gorgeous landscapes
that were shot on location in the Isle of Man. Which is just so
Irish, to shoot a movie about Ireland in another country. So rather
than waste your time going to some Babylonian or Akkadian movie
that will just try to numb you with explosions and pseudo-snappy
catch-phrases, go see this refreshing and crisp Irish film that
features spot-on acting by Ian Bannen and David Kelly as Irish
men, and funny, believable dialogue by the extremely Irish writer/director
Kirk Jones. Well, okay, Kirk Jones is English, but he's so good
he should be Irish. --DiGiovanna
Special Screenings
ANIMATED WORLDS. That little gem of cinephilic delights,
The Screening Room, brings us an animated film festival that is
in no way dedicated to explosive diarrhea and injuries to the
eye. Animated World presents the best of two decades' worth
of animation from Portland. Highlights include Jim Blashfields
photo-animation (including his award-winning video of the Talking
Heads song "And She Was"), the Academy Award winning
"clay paintings" of Joan Graetz, and a piece by Portland-area
cartoonist and America's favorite paraplegic, John Callahan. Shows
are 8 p.m. Friday; 6, 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday; and 3, 5 and 7:30
p.m. Sunday. Admission is $4, $3 for matinees.
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