 |
 Celluloid Closet. This terrific documentary traces
both the overt and covert portrayal of lesbians and gays in the
movies from the freedom of silent era, to the middle of the century
(when same-sex relationships in the movies usually ended in death),
to today, when a gay character actually has a chance of surviving!
This movie is full of wonderful clips and intriguing, behind-the-scenes
glimpses from actors and screenwriters. Learn all about the secret
love-plot embedded in Ben Hur from Gore Vidal; hear about
the obsessive lesbian yearning of the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers
in Hitchcock's Rebecca from Susie Bright. Best of all,
hear Susan Sarandon talk about the triumph and trials of bedding
Catherine Deneuve.
Flower Of My Secret. Famed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar
takes a stab at melodrama in his most earnest work to date. The
film is dotted with delightful high points and disappointing lows
as Leo, a middle-aged romance writer, negotiates the loss of the
love of her husband. Almodovar is best known for his comedies,
and sometimes it's hard to tell if this movie is satirical. The
illogical script is also sometimes annoying, but when things are
working in this movie, it has the quality of life being portrayed
as it really is, instead of all chewed up and processed like in
Hollywood movies.
Great White Hype. A movie that borrows half its stylistic
impulse from Blaxploitation flicks, half from spaghetti westerns--it
will leave you nostalgic for both and unsatisfied with the combo.
Samuel Jackson plays an unscrupulous boxing promoter who pits
a white underdog against the black heavy weight champ in order
to stir up a racist frenzy of promotion. That's the whole plot--the
rest is padding, and there's plenty of it. It's mildly funny,
slightly thoughtful, sort of interesting, and wholly mediocre.
Jackson does get to wear some super-cool costumes though.
Heaven's Prisoners. This long, sweaty look at cops and
robbers in bayou country never really coalesces into much of a
movie. There are lots of stylish shots and the atmosphere is so
thick you could eat it with a fork, but beneath this is virtually
nothing! Alec Baldwin plays a tough homicide detective who's
trying to retire, but bad guys keep literally falling out of the
sky and landing on top of him, and he just can't resist chasing
them. Not only is he addicted to fighting crime, he's also battling,
unsuccessfully, to stay on the wagon. A bevy of babes, both good
and evil (including Teri Hatcher as a clothing-impaired villain),
come to soothe and tempt him. The characters run around for two-and-a-half
hours, then it's over.
James And The Giant Peach. Roald Dahl's children's classic
comes to life in this movie through the Disney magic of stop-motion
animation. The overgrown bugs are cute, young James is darling
and the animation is absolutely charming; still, if you're over
12, plan to be a little bored, especially during the singing part.
Those to the left of the political spectrum may enjoy the secret
embedded Marxist mythology being espoused here--James and the
bugs seize the fruits of their labor (the peach!) from the evil,
property owning aunts and take it across the ocean to share with
the masses. Apparently Disney has been brainwashing our young
for years, perhaps creating the Cold War through the seemingly
"cute" shenanigans of little dancing bugs and mice.
Probably with the cooperation of the phone company.
Last Supper. It wouldn't be fair to blame all of this dog
of a movie's failures on Annabeth Gish, but it isn't a bad place
to start. Last Supper opens as a promising attempt at social
satire as a group of five liberal arts graduate students try to
reason their way through, literally, getting away with murder.
They start with Zach, a red-blooded, white trash patriot who soundly
thrashes them for not being willing to stand up for their beliefs.
"You mean we're not willing to die for our beliefs,"
says Gish derisively. "No," says Zach. "Dyin's
easy. A cause you're willing to kill for, now that's somethin'."
From this early success the movie spirals into stupidity from
an overdose of melodrama: Inviting extremists to Sunday dinner
for death by debate really should seem like a lot more fun. It
may not stimulate much discussion on social consciousness, but
it will undoubtedly alter your opinion of tomatoes.
Spy Hard. A feeding-frenzy of rampant stupidity, shoddy
production values and of course, fart jokes. In one particularly
depressing aspect of this movie, a whole bunch of actors we haven't
seen in a while reappear looking fatter, older and less talented
than they ever have in their lives.
THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS. Janeane Garofalo stars as
Dr. Abby Barnes, a veterinarian with the title call-in radio show
for distraught pet owners. The plot thickens when, amidst the
daily grind of callers with finicky basset hounds and rashes from
three-hour cat tongue baths, a mysterious photographer with a
European accent has a crisis with a Great Dane on roller skates.
When the grateful caller, Brian (Ben Chaplin), talks Abby into
meeting him in person, she inexplicably describes herself as her
supermodel neighbor, played to dippy perfection by Uma Thurman.
It's an insipid premise--smart-but-unattractive woman chooses
beautiful-but-dumb proxy to win the man of her dreams. But from
start to finish the movie is so damn cute--cute animals, cute
actors, cute lines--you might not even notice. Not recommended
for those afraid to laugh out loud in public.
Twister. After a tornado kills Helen Hunt's father, she
becomes obsessed with revenge in this incredibly stupid Michael
Crichton thriller. Every plot point is explained at least three
times in dialogue before being realized in action, and the actors,
especially Bill Paxton, appear to be truly embarrassed by the
script. In an interesting twist, while the good guys in this movie
are weathermen, the bad guys are also weathermen--Bad Weathermen,
in black vans. Nevertheless, there is something to be said for
watching cows, trucks and cars sailing through barns.
|
 |
