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 COOKIE'S FORTUNE. Director Robert Altman comes back strong
in this quiet story about confused relations in a southern town.
Charles Dutton turns in a career performance as Willis Richland,
who is falsely accused of murder when Camille Orcutt (Glenn Close)
rearranges things at the scene of her aunt's suicide. Julianne
Moore gives even better than her usual turn as Camille's deranged,
thespian sister. Also featuring the ubiquitous Chris O'Donnell
(perhaps most tragically known for his role as Robin), the fetching
Liv Tyler, the under-appreciated Ned Beatty and the indescribable
Lyle Lovett.
--DiGiovanna
THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS. The structuring device of this
French film is not a narrative but a location. The apartment that
young transients Isa and Marie share is the site of the beginning
and end of their relationship; it serves as their protection from
the patriarchal world they have difficulty navigating, and rejects
them when that realm is invited inside. Focusing on mundane events
such as job hunting and dish washing proves effective in revealing
well-rounded protagonists and the friendship that thrives within
the safe haven they've found. In stark contrast, the male characters
are merely devices to portray these women. Unfortunately, the
film's second half is dominated by Marie's dramatic and unbelievable
emotional shift, as she enters a simplistically vile relationship
and follows it to a clichéd conclusion.
--Higgins
ELECTION. I've never really agreed with universal participatory
democracy, because so much of the electorate is ill-informed and
their votes are easily manipulated by demagogues and heartlessly
ambitious power-mongers. (That's why I just let Tucson Weekly
editor Jim Nintzel pick my votes for me...he's well informed and
has no ambition. I call it Nintzelocracy.) Commenting on this,
Election takes all the worst traits of American politics
and squeezes them into a high school full of immature teens, which
is pretty much what American politics looks like to the rest of
the world anyway. Director Alexander Payne's sharp eye for satire
makes Election the funniest, and one of the smartest, films
so far this year. --DiGiovanna
ENTRAPMENT. A rather lifeless crime spree, weighed down
by mediocre plotting and a plodding script. Sean Connery stars
as an aging art thief out for one last heist. Catherine Zeta-Jones
emphasizes her assets as a young criminal hoping to get a good
start by falling in love with Connery and stealing $8 billion.
Lots of prancing about in tight clothing, James Bond-type gadgetry
and unlikely sexual tension shove the story forward, though you'll
probably get a better crime drama by staying home and watching
Rockford Files reruns. --DiGiovanna
INSTINCT. After The Matrix and The Phantom Menace,
I thought we'd have a dearth of "chosen one" references,
but Disney keeps the trend alive by offering Cuba Gooding Jr.
as its savior of the month. How exciting that men keep choosing
men--this time, the smitten one is Anthony Hopkins. He plays Ethan
Powell, an anthropologist who communes with gorillas for a couple
of years until he is jailed in Rwanda for killing three men. When
he's transferred to a psychiatric penitentiary in the United States,
Theo (Gooding) is the doctor who attempts to discover Ethan's
motives and understand how he was accepted into a simian family.
The blossoming doctor-patient relationship is dialogue heavy and
relatively free of tension as Ethan recalls his jungle days and
teaches Theo "how to live." Most of the trips outside
of the prison are disjointed, as Theo visits either his reality-based
mentor Ben (Donald Sutherland), or Lyn (Maura Tierney), Ethan's
heterosexually recuperative daughter. According to the musical
score, every scene contains a highly dramatic moment, so be prepared
to laugh, cry and cheer as Ethan sits down, Theo pours a cup of
coffee and a gorilla grooms itself.--Higgins
LIFE. The Shawshank Redemption meets Stir Crazy
in this decades-spanning prison comedy. Eddie Murphy and Martin
Lawrence play a couple of buffoons who get framed for murder in
the Deep South. Their incarceration carries them from the Prohibition
Era into modern times, and director Ted Demme takes the opportunity
to mix social observation (it'd be a stretch to call it "commentary")
into the story. This includes surprisingly well-shaded views of
racism. Mostly, though, Life provides Murphy and Lawrence
with scattered opportunities for comic riffing. Murphy does his
funniest, most free-spirited work in years, and Lawrence makes
a likable straight man. It's a shame the movie is so aimless,
but a sloppy Life is worth a dozen tight Dr. Dolittles.
--Woodruff
THE LOVE LETTER. Releasing a film the same weekend as Star
Wars might at first seem insane, but the folks at DreamWorks
are smart enough to realize that older viewers and women are two
huge audiences not targeted by the Lucas blockbuster. Hence, The
Love Letter: a romance with 40-plus-aged characters and lots
of women. Kate Capshaw plays Helen, a bookstore owner whose faith
in love is restored when she receives an anonymous letter she
believes is meant for her. The letter is then found by several
other characters, who all interpret it according to their own
emotional needs. This premise gets tiring quickly, the main character
is unlikeable and the slow pace may make you wish you'd stopped
for coffee before hitting the theater. At the same time, there
are a number of elements that are just wacky or unexpected enough
to be enjoyable: Ellen DeGeneres, playing an overly determined
heterosexual, dispenses blunt sarcasm and practical one-liners;
there's the all-too-rare H-wood circumstance of a woman (Helen)
bedding someone half her age; a strange All-That-Heaven-Allows-inspired
feminist character (Jennifer, played by Julianne Nicholson) spouts
academic rhetoric; Tom Selleck tests his powers without his mustache;
and an older lesbian couple anchors much of the story. --Higgins
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Local punk rock star Greg Petix
told me that there's always one woman whom you cannot openly admire
without pissing off every other woman in the country. Currently,
that woman is Calista Flockhart, who I must say, turns in a fabulous
performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has a clear
mastery of the language, and is the only actor in the production
who emphasizes the iambic pentameter without sounding artificial.
Kevin Kline is also outstanding, as are Stanley Tucci as Puck
and Rupert Evert as Oberon. Unfortunately, Michelle Pfeiffer as
Titania sounds like a non-native speaker attempting to phonetically
sound-out the script; but there are enough strong performances
here to make her insignificant. This is good stuff for Shakespeare
lovers, but the difficult dialogue may be off-putting to those
who prefer Shakespeare in Love to the real material.
--DiGiovanna
NOTTING HILL. A glorified made-for-TV movie, Nodding-off
Hill employs a mind-numbing pace and uncomfortable story-stretching
conventions. For more than two hours, the simple premise of ordinary
guy William (Hugh Grant) falling for very beautiful and very famous
movie star Anna (Julia Roberts) is painstakingly told through
a series of contrived scenes and an abundance of ridiculous montage
sequences where songs are substituted for actual character development.
For example, "Ain't No Sunshine" plays while William
(sad? confused? hungry?) deals with Anna's absence over a year's
time. The result is a lack of chemistry between the leads and
a sense that William falls in love merely because Anna is pretty,
and ends up in more scenes with him than anyone else. It's a welcome
change that Rotting Hell is told largely from a male perspective,
as William pines for the self-involved Anna. Further adding to
this genre piece is the continuance of Robert's persona, from
My Best Friend's Wedding, of the romantic comedy anti-heroine
who rejects stereotypically feminine characteristics for more
masculine ones. Eventually, though, the tacked-on "happy"
ending forces both William and Anna into traditional and dissatisfying
roles.--Higgins
OPEN YOUR EYES. A sterilized-looking Madrid is the backdrop
for this incredibly smart and challenging Spanish film investigating--you
guessed it--virtual reality, body modification and immortality.
As César (Eduardo Noriega) recounts stories of lovers,
a disfiguring car crash and numerous plastic surgeries to a psychiatrist,
his credibility is consistently undermined as reality is embedded
in dreams which are in turn enveloped in nightmare. This engaging
phenomenological tale is ostensibly guided by César, but
he is plagued by a seemingly benevolent yet mysterious man who
heads a cryogenics company. The protagonist dons a mask for much
of the movie, raising issues of authenticity as well as self-image
in contemporary Western culture. As the narrative layers are revealed
and recovered, the characters are repeatedly duped; best of all,
so are the viewers.--Higgins
STAR WARS: EPISODE 1--THE PHANTOM MENACE. This movie is
just like real life for a museum tour guide: the dialogue sucks
and there's no plot, but it's full of pretty things to look at.
--DiGiovanna
TEA WITH MUSSOLINI. A disappointing effort by Italian cineaste
Franco Zeffirelli, Tea tells of the trials of a group of
English expatriates in Mussolini's Florence. While there are a
number of good performances, the lackluster script and understated
cinematography fail to bring out the style and verve that made
fascism the best-looking force for evil in the 20th century.
--DiGiovanna
13TH FLOOR. What if everything was just a virtual reality
simulation? And what if you found out that you were part of that
simulation? And what if this movie had been done twice already
this year? Bonus: 13th Floor postulates that the non-existence
of the world can be proved by going to Tucson.
--DiGiovanna
THIS IS MY FATHER. One sign of a weak script is a narrative
that relies upon coincidence to drive its story forward, and this
Irish/Canadian co-production depends upon several. The film attempts
to document an ordinary man and his family against an unbelievable
backdrop, a move which results in an uneven tone throughout. Kieran
(James Caan) never knew his father, yet he's motivated to travel
to the Irish village his mother Fiona (Moya Farrelly) grew up
in after his nephew accidentally smashes open a wooden box that
just happens to contain a love letter written by Kieran Sr. (Aidan
Quinn). When he arrives in Ireland, he has the uncanny fortune
to lodge at the home of a woman who was told the story of his
parents by a young Fiona. The narrative then alternates between
Kieran and his father; but their tales are so unrelated, the characters
exist without substantial resonance for one another. The cinematography
and locations are beautiful, but they cannot calm the frustration
caused by the disjointed and incongruous plot. --Higgins
THREE SEASONS. Extremely beautiful cinematography doesn't
quite make up for the trite stories in this Saigon-slice-of-life
piece. A young woman who begins work at a lotus-blossom farm,
a bicycle-taxi driver and a 10-year-old street urchin all encounter
compelling others in the streets of modern Vietnam. Harvey Keitel
does a long vanity bit about a former Marine searching for his
daughter, and there's a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold piece, but
the show stealer is the story of the flower girl. Serene shots
of lakes filled with blossoms and the women who row out to pick
them make this a relaxing, if not entirely engaging, effort. --DiGiovanna
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