|
 BEAN. We pull their butts out of World War II, and this
is how the British repay us? The most tragic thing about this
picture is that star Rowan Atkinson is actually tremendously funny
as his character "Blackadder," seen in a BBC television
series. However, while Blackadder relies on cerebral, verbal humor,
Bean is a near-mute who stumbles through vomit jokes and some
unsavory nose-blowing bits. If your idea of a good time is to
watch a dumbed-down version of a Jim Carrey movie with the sound
off, and you've recently lost 30-percent of your brain capacity
to carbon monoxide poisoning, and you're completely drunk on wood
alcohol, then Bean will only be way too stupid for you.
Anyone else would get more laughs out of watching an eight-ounce
glass of water evaporate. --DiGiovanna
BOOGIE NIGHTS. This film about porno actors in the 1970s
is nice 'n' sleazy, but in a good way. Boogie Nights tracks
the career of Eddie Adams (porno name: Dirk Diggler), a sweet
kid from The Valley who's not really all that bright. But, as
he says, "everyone is blessed with one special thing,"
and his is located in his pants. The best and worst of '70s cultural
detritus forms the perfect backdrop for the story of Dirk, who
believes fervently, despite all evidence to the contrary, that
adult movies are a force for good. There's dissolution, loss of
innocence, and a strange, fragile sense of triumph in this movie
that is, at the core, about a bunch of untalented people struggling
to make art. --Richter
EVE'S BAYOU. A movie that begins with the line, "The
summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old," Eve's
Bayou is a sluggishly paced family drama that, at the least,
always gives you something to look forward to. But this isn't
primarily a murder story, and Eve's not really a murderess. Instead,
the confused, curious title character is the starting point for
several threads relating to women's feelings about men. When Eve
(played by the thoroughly watchable Jurnee Smollett) isn't competing
against big sis for the affections of her charismatic father (Samuel
L. Jackson), she's watching her mother's emotions wither away
due to daddy's small-town philandering. Then there's daddy's psychic
sister, a three-time widow who's convinced she's cursed. Add a
pinch of witchcraft here, a dollop of female bonding there, lace
in some strong performances by an all-black cast, serve it up
with lovely images from a mossy Louisiana backwater--and oh yeah,
don't forget that murder--and you've got a Southern gothic that'd
probably be affecting if the direction were sharper. Unfortunately,
it isn't, and Eve's Bayou gets stuck in a murky quagmire
somewhere between compelling and boring. --Woodruff
GATTACA. Imagine, if you will, a future society so obsessed
with flawlessness that Uma Thurman fails to measure up to the
standards of perfection. Also, there are two brothers: The genetically
perfect one grows up to be a cop, but the genetically imperfect
one becomes a criminal--so they must fight! And then there's this
one scene where a drop of snot dangles at the tip of Uma's nose,
never falling, as she turns her head a bit to the left, a bit
to the right. It's arguably the best snot scene ever filmed. While
much of the film is preachy, pretentious and slow, the snot scene
is easily worth the $7 admission price. See, she has the snot
coming out of her nose--because she's not perfect! Oddly,
genetic anomaly Danny DeVito produced this film. --DiGiovanna
LA PROMESSE. See the 15-year-old Igor help his slumlord
dad exploit illegal immigrants. See Igor promise to take care
of a poor tenant's wife and child as the man lay there dying from
an accident. See Igor's dad hide the body and continue to exploit
the man's wife and child instead of telling them what happened.
See Igor slowly realize his dad is scum. See Igor develop a moral
conscience and, though disoriented, come into his own as a human
being. See the Belgian filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
use a stark hand-held camera technique until you're dizzy. See
this movie anyway, because it has a detailed documentary feel
with verisimilitude and subtlety that more than make up for what
it lacks in conventional dramatic satisfactions. --Woodruff
A LIFE LESS ORDINARY. The third film from the team that
brought us Trainspotting and Shallow Grave has the
same startling sense of composition and color as these previous
efforts, but none of the wit. Ewan McGregor plays a poor janitor
who falls in love with a beautiful rich girl (Cameron Diaz) due
to the influence of some bizarre angel-creature-things. The film
lurches from fantasy to romance to road movie without rhyme or
reason; even worse, the Boy and Girl don't even seem to like each
other, much less light up each other's lives. If you crossed the
1932 Hollywood romance It Happened One Night with Touched
by an Angel and stirred in a little bit of Tommy
and then doubled your dose of Prozac, then you'd be watching A
Life Less Ordinary. The question is, why would anyone want
to do this? --Richter
MAD CITY. Who says a homicidal maniac can't be lovable?
Who among us, given the right circumstances (a gun, a bag of dynamite,
a snooty museum director who just won't listen) wouldn't take
a bunch of schoolchildren hostage? Yes, this really is
the premise of Mad City, an annoying, bombastic little
frolic starring Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta as a pair of
unlikely allies. Travolta plays a regular, not-so-bright working
guy who sort of accidentally, without really intending to, holds
a bunch of museum visitors hostage. But all he wants is his job
back! And this mean lady won't give it to him! Hoffman plays a
washed-up news reporter who just happens to find himself in the
museum when the action goes down. A media circus of expected proportions
ensues. Young innocents are corrupted. Lessons about exploitation
are learned. Audiences feel ripped off. --Richter
RED CORNER. After a one night stand that finds his Chinese
lover dead and her blood on his shirt, an American lawyer on business
in China gets inserted into the Chinese penal and judicial systems.
Trapped like a gerbil stuck in an unfamiliar dark maze from which
there's no escape, the cocky businessman, played by Richard Gere's
stylishly tousled hair, must rely on his wits and his plucky female
Chinese lawyer to save his life. The movie's vision of China is
like Steve Martin's old stand-up routine on France: everything
is different there! The courts aren't like ours, cameras everywhere
spy on the populace, and sometimes people with butcher knives
chop the heads off chickens! The conspiracy is a recycled one
and the characterizations are wafer thin, but fans of Gere's buttocks
may find solace in a couple of seconds of his nude backside as
he is tossed into a prison cell. -- McKay
STARSHIP TROOPERS. Johnny and Carmen are sweethearts, but
Carmen loves Zander, because he looks so good in uniform. So she
joins the army to be near him. So Johnny joins to be near Carmen.
So Dizzy, who loves Johnny, joins to be near him. Oddly, even
though they're from Buenos Aires, they all speak English with
perfect Southern California accents, and are the most white-bread
people in the armed forces. Anyway, Carmen sends a "Dear
Johnny" letter, and Johnny has a night of passion with Dizzy,
so giant space insects kill Dizzy. If the giant space insects
kill Zander, then perhaps Johnny and Carmen can finally be together.
Meanwhile, Doogie Howser MD has psychic congress with the bugs,
even though he really loved Dizzy all along. An unprecedented
number of things, people, and insects get blown up or chewed up,
and some brains are eaten, but this provides the hope for salvation.
Sadly, we have to wait for the sequel to see if the bugs are defeated,
Johnny gets to have love with Carmen, and Doogie Howser learns
how to say his lines without making the audience guffaw. Rated
"R" for completely gratuitous nudity and lots of little
pieces of human bodies flying all over the place. --DiGiovanna
SWITCHBACK. Jeb Stuart, the scribe behind such moneymakers
as Die Hard and The Fugitive, directed this low-key
but reasonably good thriller based on one of his early screenplays.
The plot, which leads from Texas to the beautiful, snow-clogged
Rocky Mountains, has an FBI agent (Dennis Quaid, sad-eyed and
brooding) tracking the serial killer who kidnapped Quaid's son.
Action-movie clichés abound, but Switchback has
a surprisingly honorable feel to it; all the main characters,
even (inexplicably) the villain, are granted heavy doses of sympathy
and integrity. Danny Glover and Jared Leto are interesting as
an unlikely pair of travelers (one of whom may be the killer);
but the best is R. Lee Ermey as a scrupulous sheriff. Ermey, best
known as the sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, has been cool
in nearly everything he's done. --Woodruff
A TOUCH OF EVIL. This great, 1958 classic crime thriller
directed by Orson Welles features one of the most famous, continuous
tracking shots in Hollywood history--a three-minute crane shot
running under the opening credits. Based on Whit Masterson's novel,
Badge of Evil, the film was a box-office flop in its time
and was reviled as a glaring example of the worst cinematic sleaze.
Of course, it's widely loved now for the same reasons. This tale
of good and evil in a corrupt, decaying border town features all
of the exaggerated characters and moody, technical tricks of which
Orson Welles was such a master. Starring Charleton Heston, Janet
Leigh and Orson Welles' lumbering girth. --Richter
YEAR OF THE HORSE. Jim Jarmusch consolidates his reputation
as the Kurt Cobain of filmmaking with Year of the Horse,
a gritty documentary about the original grunge band, Crazy Horse.
The opening credits declare "proudly filmed in Super-8, 16mm,
and hi-8," three low-budget formats that Jarmusch enhances
with expensive post-production so they look as much like 35 mm
film stock as possible. The film documents Neil Young and his
bandmates over about 20 years, interspersing then-and-now interviews
with footage from a recent tour. Okay, I like Crazy Horse,
but only an absurdly devoted fan could be entranced by concert
footage of three middle-aged guys standing in a half-circle clutching
guitars and bobbing from the knees as though they were cranes
engaged in a mating dance. Jarmusch is apparently such a fan.
The concert footage takes up most of the film, and it's even more
stale for being filmed in hi-8, a consumer-grade video format.
This fandom extends to the respectful, fawning interviews with
the band members. It's too bad Jarmusch didn't learn more from
all the great documentaries that have been already made about
bands. One of the strengths of D.A. Pennebaker's terrific Don't
Look Back is that it portrayed Bob Dylan as an enormously
talented artist who could also be a real asshole. But Neil Young
could take his grandmother to Year of the Horse. --Richter
|
 |
