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 BRASSED OFF! This goofy, affable, golden-retriever of a
movie trots along offering modest pleasures and no real surprises.
The time is the 1980s; the place a coal-mining town in England
where Margaret Thatcher's policies are forcing the closure of
the pit that supports an entire community. And with it will go
the brass band that's offered a small slice of glory and culture
to men who spend most of their lives underground. To top it all
off, a girl wants to join the band! Underground heartthrob
Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) portrays an angry young trumpet
player with his usual flair, and Pete Postlethwaite does a fine
job as the single-minded, ailing band leader; but Tara Fitzgerald
is flimsy and annoying as the city-girl horn player Gloria. Plus,
you could toss a tuba through the holes in the plot. Why doesn't
the band ever turn the pages of the sheet music on the stands
in front of them? --Richter
CAREER GIRLS. Mike Leigh's impressionistic portrait of
the changes in the lives of two young women is sweet, refreshing,
and original. When Annie (Lynda Steadman) comes to London to visit
Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge), her former best friend, the two haven't
seen each other since graduating from college. Their initial awkwardness
fades away as the pair re-visit the site of previous betrayals
and adventures; Leigh pops us back and forth in time so we can
observe the changes in the character's lives. We see them in college,
neurotic, full of ticks (Hannah has the annoying habit of using
her hand as a talking puppet) and incessantly listening to The
Cure. This alternates with footage of the two in the present,
well-dressed and still slightly off-kilter, but with the grace
and perspective to finally understand the confusion they'd gone
through as undergraduates: Imagine Mary and Rhoda having a reunion,
but with thick British accents and adult situations. What's more,
the acting in this movie is wonderful--strange and natural at
once. --Richter
CONSPIRACY THEORY. Who does Mel Gibson think he's fooling?
In his role as a scruffy New York cab driver with an overactive
suspicion gland, Gibson constantly stutters, mumbles, and acts
like a coked-up manchild. It's ridiculous. Like Gibson, director
Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon) can't seem to find an appropriate
tone for what, in truth, is a disturbing portrait of an unhinged
paranoid. Inevitably Donner gives up and makes the weird choice
of directing Conspiracy Theory like just another fun-loving
Mel Gibson flick. That would have worked fine for a straightforward
mystery/thriller, but the film's plot makes so many sharp right
turns, and heads in so many contradictory directions, you end
up feeling pretty unhinged yourself. And though it's part of the
movie's selling point, the developing romantic tension between
Gibson and Julia Roberts (who, as a Federal agent, provides the
movie's only unembarrassing performance) just seems inappropriate.
--Woodruff
COP LAND. A posse of famous Hollywood actors populate this
predictable tale of a small town sheriff fighting corruption in
the New York City police force. Sylvester Stallone does a decent
job playing Sheriff Freddy Heflin, a beer-gutted, not-so-bright
lawman with a heart of gold, but it's certainly not a performance
to get hot and bothered about. Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel and Robert
DeNiro all make appearances as either good guys or bad guys--there
aren't many shades of gray in Cop Land, and as a consequence,
somewhere in the middle all this good cop/bad cop stuff loses
momentum. Writer/director James Mangold has a fascination with
heroes who are total losers, but alas, he reigns it in and goes
with the easy outcome. --Richter
EVENT HORIZON. Whose idea was it to set a haunted-house
flick aboard a spaceship at the far reaches of the solar system?
It's not a bad concept, really, but the filmmakers don't have
a clue where to take it. Despite some of the best futuristic special
effects and set design of the year, director Paul Anderson keeps
dipping into a tired old bag of horror-movie tricks including
gushing blood, scary sequences that turn out to be dreams, and
vague discussions of "pure evil" that sound like even
more of a cop-out when couched in science-fiction terms. The cast--which
includes Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, and Kathleen Quinlan--couldn't
be better, but you end up wishing the script gave them more to
do than run around tortured by their own worst memories. It's
like a bad acid-trip combination of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
Hellraiser and Flatliners. Some have applauded Event
Horizon as an antidote to Contact's corny feel-good
view of space, but they can keep their cure--the disease was a
lot less depressing. --Woodruff
PICTURE PERFECT. Jennifer Aniston plays a Madison Avenue
copywriter whose boss, ludicrously, won't promote her unless he
senses she's headed for the stability of marriage. When her friend
solves the problem by inventing a fiancee based on a snapshot
of a stranger (Jay Mohr), everything works out great--until that
stranger becomes famous for saving a kid from a fire. Romantic-comedy
situations ensue: Aniston hires Mohr to pretend they're a couple,
Mohr falls for her, and the rest of the movie flips by like pages
in a photo album full of people you don't
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