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 Emma. What would Jane Austen think of the movie adaptations
of her novels? How would she conduct herself at a Hollywood opening?
Surely she would be appalled at the sudden excess of Jane Austen
movies, as she was appalled at the excess of almost anything else.
But the glut of 19th-century literary adaptations continues with
a new version of Emma, Austen's most lighthearted novel.
Gwyneth Paltrow stars as a young woman with the unfortunate habit
of meddling in other people's affairs. The plot is the same as
in Clueless, except the women in Emma wear nightgowns
and the guys ride horses. Emma is not as good as Sense
and Sensibility, but if you like to see meek girls find husbands,
it's a perfectly solid movie, and Paltrow has such a beautiful
smile that it's a delight to watch her even when she's not quite
in stride.
Escape From L.A. John Carpenter comes back for another
round in this fun, campy reprise of his 15-year-old Escape
From New York. It is again the not-so-distant future, and
the entire city of Los Angeles has been turned into a prison camp
for criminals, degenerates and smokers. Only one man, with one
eye, Snake Plisskin (Kurt Russell) can retrieve the doomsday device
from deep within the city. Schlockier and more self-conscious
than the first Escape movie, Escape From L.A. lacks
the bleakness of Carpenter's earlier version but makes up for
it with silly special effects and a priceless surfing moment.
This movie makes L.A. look like more fun than you ever imagined.
HEAVY. A thoughtful, achingly sad film about an overweight
pizza cook who falls in love with a teenage girl, played by supermodel
Liv Tyler. Sparse dialogue, dull, cluttered sets and a pathologically
shy hero help this movie live up to its name. Livening up the
melancholy mood are great performances by Shelley Winters, Debbie
Harry and Pruitt Taylor Vince, who is amazing as the pizza cook
Victor.
KANSAS CITY. In the last 25 years, Robert Altman has made
some of the best movies in America and some of the worst. Kansas
City finds Altman at the dip in the graph. This story of a
politician's wife who is kidnapped by a manicurist during the
height of the jazz era lacks all nuance, cohesion and sense. The
plot is forced and arbitrary, and the characters never spring
to life. Altman seems to be trying to make two movies at once:
An adventure crime flick and a moving character study, but ends
up not really doing either. Jennifer Jason Leigh's career is much
like Altman's: When she's in form, she's terrific, but when she's
not, she's horrible. As Blondie the manicurist, Leigh twists and
ticks through a self-conscious, mannered performance that's painful
to watch. The only good parts of this movie are when the jazz
musicians come in, but they can't save it.
Kingpin. Funny, energetic and totally offensive, Kingpin
is a surprisingly engaging film about bowling, of all things.
But enough of reviewers, what do the fans say? "It exceeded
all my expectations for a bowling movie," reports one viewer
after a recent screening. "One of the top-five bowling movies
of all time," chimes in another. "A motion picture extravaganza
like no other. Two hooks up!" exclaims yet a third enthusiastic
citizen. But not all reports are rosy. "It has too much character
development and not enough cheap laughs," one disappointed
fellow responds. And a confused audience member asks: "Which
Jane Austen novel is this based on?"
JACK. Francis Coppola, director of Apocalypse Now and
Captain Eo, brings us a "heartwarming" comedy
about a 10 year-old boy who has a disease that makes him look
like Robin Williams. Jack's parents have kept him home because
they're afraid the other kids will taunt him for being different;
but Jack is lonely, and after considerable prodding they consent
to send him to school. At first the other children do tease him,
but eventually they come to love him. The intersection between
the idealization of childhood as an unfallen, perfectly natural
state and the sexuality of an adult male body in this movie is
completely bizarre. Robin Williams is supposed to be ten, but
he reads Penthouse, makes passes at his teacher and tongue
kisses his best friend's mom, all while teaching his friends and
family about the spontaneous beauty of childlike behavior. It's
interesting, but kind of disturbing, too.
Lone Star. Director John Sayles delivers an offbeat, thoughtful
examination of border life and love in this winding tale of one
lawman searching for his roots. Chris Cooper plays a divorced
Texas sheriff trying to sort out fact from legend, particularly
in regard to his father, who may or may not have been a bad kind
of a guy. His search leads him across the big, dusty state and
into a half-dozen different recollections of a puzzling past.
Though the characters have an annoying propensity for explaining
their motivations in gruesome psychological detail, and though
Sayles (as always) can't resist an opportunity to preach the liberal
cause; and though the production values of this movie are so shoddy
that nearly 20 annoying minutes of it are out of sync, Lone
Star still somehow manages to be an engaging, surprising film.
A Time to Kill. An overblown but entertaining courtroom
drama, based on a John Grisham novel, about racial strife in the
deep South. Samuel L. Jackson plays a humble working man driven
to take the law into his own hands when a pair of good ol' boys
rape his young daughter; Matthew McConaughey plays the white-bread
attorney who decides to defend him. (Chris Cooper is also in this
movie, in a strange reprise of his role in Lone Star.)
Somewhere in there is Sandra Bullock, playing an eager young law
student who both helps and distracts the white guy from his lawyerin'.
Yes, morality is laid out on a nice flat grid, but the fact that
there even is a moral battle here gives this movie a heavy,
heavy dose of tension and drama, despite the fact that its view
of the South and the people in it are so stereotyped they're practically
cartoons. If only director Joel Schumacher (of Batman Forever
fame) would leave out the swelling music, this movie might have
some real power.
Tin Cup. This tissue-weight romantic comedy about love,
ambition and golfing is sweet, enjoyable and forgettable. Golf
fans will probably like it more than the population-at-large,
and golf fans on dates will probably like it most of all. Rene
Russo is funny, charismatic and gorgeous as a ditzy psychotherapist;
Kevin Costner manages to come off as a suitable love interest
for her, despite the fact that his character is a slacker and
an alcoholic. (Maybe because he looks more like a movie star than
a loser, alcoholic golf pro.) Together they take the high stakes,
tension-filled world of pro-golfing by storm!
Trainspotting. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, this
hip, streetwise movie meanders through the underworld of Scottish
drug culture with a cold, steely eye. A group of disillusioned
blokes sneer, shoot-up and slug their way through the stupefying
sludge of middle-class life, hoping drugs or crime or a combination
of the two will help them transcend the boredom and humility of
being young, without ambition and Scottish. The funny, fast-talking
characters don't have enough direction in their lives to allow
this movie to have a plot, but who needs a plot when you have
such a great script?
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