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 BLAST FROM THE PAST. It's October 1962, and the
Webbers (Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek) think a nuclear
war has started. Just as they enter their bomb shelter, Mrs. Webber
gives birth to a boy. Oddly enough, 35 years later that boy has
become Brendan Fraser, who really doesn't even look old
enough to be Brendan Fraser's age (30). So he rises to
the surface world where he is mistaken for the son of God. Now,
Fraser is cute, really cute, but not quite Jesus cute, so at this
point the movie starts to strain its credibility. Nonetheless,
he bumbles about with the help of Alicia Silverstone (remember
her from those Aerosmith videos?), learning about all the zany
stuff that's happened since the Kennedy administration,
like cheap sex and Internet porn. Then more craziness ensues.
Because it's a comedy. --DiGiovanna
CENTRAL STATION. Rarely will you see an actress in her
late 60s star opposite a young boy, but that's exactly
the odd couple that drives this thought-provoking Brazilian film.
Dora, a retired schoolteacher, teams up with JosuÈ, a recent
orphan, to try to find the boy's natural father. Their
journey takes place largely on a bus ride, where they lose all
of their money chasing after JosuÈ's ideal of his
parent. The ordinariness of these characters and how they handle
their crises is compelling and well told through visual details
such as drab clothing and bleak surroundings, and narratively
via slow pacing and an overall lack of drama. If you're
up for a chuckle, save Central Station for another day;
it's a slice-of-life tale that's best enjoyed when
you have the patience and energy to sympathize with imperfect
yet resonant characters who struggle within modest destinies.--Higgins
HILARY AND JACKIE. The true story (well, this is widely
disputed, but at least the putatively true story) of Hilary and
Jackie Du PrÈ, two sisters whose lives seem like a PBS
docudrama. Both were promising musicians, but Hilary decided to
settle down and raise a family while Jackie went off on a globe-hopping
tour of classical music superstardom. Of course, the family-oriented
sister has a quiet, happy and fulfilling life, while the famous
sister is incessantly unsatisfied and must come to a tragic end.
Still, a very original directorial style saves this from being
a simple cautionary tale, and makes for some aesthetically appealing,
if downbeat, cinema.
--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
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
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE. The whole time I was watching How
Stella Got Her Groove Back, I kept wondering what the film
would be like if Stella were actually a squishy, bland middle-aged
white guy being stalked by someone half his age rather than a
buff, in-her-prime black woman pursuing a younger man. Well, here's
the two-plus-hours-long answer. It would be like watching a Candida
Royale porn film: painfully slow paced, enveloped in soft lighting,
and with the overwhelming presence of every woman's worst
nightmare--the self-proclaimed Sensitive Male. Kevin Costner
plays the monster in question, a widower named Garret who wrote
some messages to his dead wife and then put them in bottles. The
much younger Theresa (Robin Wright Penn), a researcher for the
Chicago Tribune, finds one of his letters on a slow news
day and locates him in a small town in North Carolina. She teaches
him how to love again, and, unfortunately for us, Garret likes
the slow jams and subjects us to an embarrassingly stupid sex
scene. Paul Newman gives a good show as Garret's grumpy
father, and Illeana Douglas is ever-charming, if wasted in her
usual wacky sidekick role. Aside from them, it's one drawn-out,
wish-Fabio-were-here scene after the next. Take your hankies,
ladies, because you'll need something to wipe up the mess
after this pukefest. --Higgins
PAYBACK. Mel Gibson plays a man who's so bad he
actually rips the nose ring out of a tatooed, dreadlocked hipster's
nostril. That's the kind of thing that's so evil
that even people who are just appalled by the tag-along conformism
of nose rings would never have recurring fantasies about doing
it to the next mindless alterna-pop fan they see, so there's
no satisfaction in watching it. Then Mel beats up and/or kills
lots of other people, all for a measly $70,000 (US dollars, not
that worthless Canadian crap). I mean, sure, maybe you'd
want to shoot William Devane and James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson
for $130,000, but $70,000? You'd have to be really bad
to do that. Then there's more killings and beatings and
sadistic torture, broken up by Mel's mushy protestations
of love for Maria Bello, who's so darn pretty I guess she's
worth killing for. Okay, I have to admit I enjoyed this movie,
and I don't feel bad about it, but I do feel bad about
not feeling bad about it. (I told a friend that this film features
Ally McBeal star Lucy Liu in a leather bikini, and he said,
"Oh, you mean it's a good movie.") --DiGiovanna
RUSHMORE. A very sophisticated comedy with the trappings
of a teen film, Rushmore is the strange story of a love
triangle involving Max, a 15-year-old boy (newcomer Jason Schwartzman),
Rosemary, a 30-year-old woman (Olivia Williams) and Herman, a
50-year-old man (Bill Murray). Murray is fabulous as the sleazy,
irritable and pathetic millionaire Herman Blume, but Schwartzman's
performance as Max is every bit as good, producing the best comic
pairing since Meryl Streep and Al Pacino teamed up in the remake
of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Max is editor of the
school newspaper and yearbook; president of the French club, German
club, chess club, and astronomy club; captain of the fencing and
debate teams; founder of the Double-Team Dodgeball Society; and
director of the Max Fischer Players, and Schwartzman gives him
the compelling air of an immature underachiever. Rushmore
is easily the best comedy of the last year, so show your disdain
for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (who failed
to give Rushmore even a single Oscar nomination) by going
to see it three or four times, and then write them a letter reminding
them that they've given the best picture Oscar to Platoon,
Forrest Gump, Braveheart and Titanic, so where do they
get off? --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 or not 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
SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE. It's kind of a hybrid of Like
Water for Chocolate, The Little Mermaid, and one really long
commercial. You have Amanda (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a woman empowered
by her cooking, an annoying crustacean who guides her to Prince
Charming, and numerous trips to a department store. Gellar, our
beloved Buffy, gives up vampire slaying for a couple of hours
to pursue Tom (Sean Patrick Flanery) via her newfound power to
prepare meals that solicit extremely emotional responses, from
sadness to desire. The problem here is that, as with so many romantic
comedies, there isn't sufficient character development
to understand why Amanda and Tom want to get together in the first
place. And when they do finally declare their movie love to one
another, the ending seems far from happy. Amanda uses her gourmet
prowess primarily to catch her man, and Tom only seems to like
her clothes and "bold taste in dishware." They'll
get divorced in six months. --Higgins
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