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 CELEBRITY. Remember Woody Allen? Well he's back...in Kenneth
Branagh form! Branagh plays Woody down to the last tick and hiccup
in this rehash of Stardust Memories. Consistently entertaining
and occasionally funny, Celebrity is the story of a screenplay
writer who leaves his wife and gets obsessed with a much younger
woman, begging the question, Where does the endlessly creative
Mr. Allen get the ideas for his films? Woody is at his funniest
when he's drawing from his infinitely deep well of hatred, and
here he gets good effect from his distaste for ordinary people,
using the terms "dentist," "salesman" and
"antique dealer" as though they were deeply derogatory.
Luckily, he also lets fly with his hatred of artists, actors,
and directors, leaving, as far as I can tell, only writers and
editors amongst the chosen people. If he could just eliminate
editors he'd have it perfect. Bebe Neuwirth, Judy Davis, Isaac
Mizrahi, Melanie Griffith, Hank Azaria, Leonardo DiCaprio, Famke
Janssen, Joe Mantegna, Winona Ryder, Charlize Theron, and even
Andre Gregory show up here, just so they can say that they were
in a Woody Allen film. The cinematography is by Sven Nykvist,
easily one of the two or three greatest cinematographers of all
time, though he never does his best work when he's shooting for
Woody. (Check out his imagery in Pretty Baby, What's
Eating Gilbert Grape or any Bergman film from the '60s to
see why his drooling fans refer to him as "master of darkness,
master of light.") --DiGiovanna
GADJO DILO. How many times have you searched in vain for
a fresh, derogatory term for white people? Well, search no more,
because now you can add "gadjo" to that delightful list
that includes honky, haole, and ofay. "Gadjo Dilo,"
which is Romani for "Crazy-Ass White Motherfucker,"
is a meandering film about a young French man who moves in with
a group of gypsies while searching for the mysterious Nora Luca.
Seems Nora Luca is a gypsy singer, and, for no apparent reason,
this crazy-ass white boy is obsessed with finding her. He doesn't,
but he does get a taste of gypsy life, which apparently revolves
around telling other people to place their mouths on your genitals...everyone
from the tiniest children to the wizened elders seems to do this
at least 10 times a day. Gadjo Dilo is either a moving
and accurate portrait of life amongst the Romanian gypsies, or
just two plotless hours with intermittent scenes of hot sex, great
music and eye-catching costumes. In French, Romanian and Romani,
with English subtitles, and, for no known reason, Italian credits--I
kid you not. --DiGiovanna
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. When you heard about the plot to Life
is Beautiful, you probably thought, "Oh no, not another
zany comedy about the Holocaust!" Roberto Benigni plays a
Jewish bookstore owner in 1940s Italy who, along with his son,
is carted away to a Nazi concentration camp. Benigni seeks to
shield his son from the terrors by convincing him that they are
on vacation, and that the degradations of the camp are actually
part of a game. The first to collect 1,000 points through starvation,
hard labor and quiet obedience to "the scary men who yell"
will win a tank. Unfortunately, the first half hour of this film
is an overwhelmingly annoying series of slapstick routines, but
once Benigni and family are carted off to the camps the movie
achieves a nearly perfect balance between comedy and terror. It's
definitely worthwhile to tolerate the first section in order to
see something so rare as the second. This week Life is Beautiful
was nominated by Italy as its Academy Award submission. --DiGiovanna
LIVING OUT LOUD. This journey-of-self-realization flick
has the same problem a lot of movies have these days: It's entertaining
but annoying. The ever-charming Holly Hunter plays Judith Nelson,
a wealthy doctor's wife who loses it when she discovers her husband
is in love with a younger woman. She slowly pulls herself back
together with the help of some quirky new friends, a saucy nightclub
singer (Queen Latifah) and the building's elevator operator (Danny
DeVito). The ad campaign for this movie points out that director
Richard LaGravenese also wrote The Fisher King and the
screenplay for The Bridges of Madison County, as though
this were a good thing. Living Out Loud suffers from the
same gut-kick episodes of sentimentality and overwrought meaning-of-life
moments as in LaGravenese's earlier movies, cheap shots all of
them. Does anyone really need a movie to show them how to connect
more deeply with their fellow humans? Even so, this could have
been a decent film if LaGravenese had cut out the kids-dying-of-cancer,
crack-baby-rescue subplots. The performances are quite good and
the story zips along; yet, at the end of it all, it feels awfully
fake for a movie about "authenticity."--Richter
MEET JOE BLACK. That's right, Brad Pitt plays Death in
Meet Joe Black. Imagine The Seventh Seal remade
as a three-hour episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and
you might get some idea of how pretentious, repetitive, and boring
this movie is. What happens is this: Death comes to earth for
a vacation, where he falls in love with a strange, wealthy, young
woman (Clair Forlani), a doctor who can't stop squinting. Her
father is Anthony Hopkins, and he is stinking rich, and quite
understandably does not want his daughter to marry Death. All
this occurs within a leisurely three-hour time frame. Somewhere
in there is the least sexy sex scene from a non-porno movie ever,
featuring super close-ups of the pores on Brad Pitt's nose. This
reviewer recommends you stay home and clean the grout between
your tiles with a toothbrush. You'll have a better time. --Richter
PLEASANTVILLE. A charming movie with teeth, too. Two bored
teenagers of the '90s get zapped into a bland, black-and-white
family inside a 1950s sitcom, a land with a veneer of harmony
over a thick, deadening layer of repression. It's pretty cute
watching '90s teens trying to cope with the peppy mores of the
'50s while subtly undermining them; but even better, once the
'50s folk start getting laid, their gray world begins to turn
colors. This is one of the best-looking, smartest uses of computerized
special effects so far, and this Capra-esque story of a threatened
community is just the right place for it.--Richter
TOUCH OF EVIL. Thirty years after its original release,
this version of Orson Welles' film is re-edited according to changes
the director requested after viewing the studio cut that significantly
altered his vision. A beautifully shot film noir, the story follows
the investigation of a car bombing in a small town on the Mexican
border. Newlyweds Mike (Charlton Heston) and Susan Vargas (Janet
Leigh) witness the explosion during their honeymoon, so Mike joins
a nasty American police chief, Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles), in
the investigation. In true noir style, Welles creates a claustrophobic
world with a slippery definition of morality, where the cops are
sometimes as corrupt as the criminals. Though the murder is solved
by the end of the film, the most compelling question--why Heston
is playing a Mexican--remains unanswered.--Higgins
VAMPIRES. Please benefit from my suffering and don't waste
two hours of your life hoping that director John Carpenter's (Halloween,
Escape from New York) latest effort will be bad-good rather
than bad-offensive. James Woods, showing his wood in particularly
tight jeans, and Daniel Baldwin, struggling to stay awake, play
vampire slayers who pursue the father of all vampires. Along the
way they pick up Sheryl Lee so that Baldwin can take off her clothes,
tie her up, call her a bitch and eventually fall in love; and
a priest, so Woods can talk about his penis. Interesting ideas
surface--such as the mixing of the horror genre with the western
and viewing vampirism as a virus--but only for about 30 seconds.
After that, it's back to Lee's rope burns. If you hate women,
this film could be for you, but I still think you'll be tripped
up by the bad dialogue, clichéd revenge plot, and hokey
music. Oh, and there's some homophobic stuff thrown in for extra
flavor.--Higgins
VERY BAD THINGS. This is a comedy, though you wouldn't
know it from the first hour. Death, puddles of blood, dismemberment,
and ritual burial of the dead are all treated as potential gags
here--you know, as in: "Ha, ha, look, those white boys just
killed that Asian hooker! What a hoot!" Very Bad Things
is billed as a dark comedy, but it's probably better described
as a sick comedy grafted on to a thriller. It's sort of as if
Kenny were killed over and over again during a single episode
of South Park, but with more lifelike blood and no jokes
between deaths, plus that vague feeling of Hitchcock hovering
nearby. Most of Very Bad Things is too gross to be fun,
and too silly to be a real thriller. The script has the feel of
something written by a snotty 22-year-old boy, though it was penned
and directed by Chicago Hope star Peter Berg, who I suppose
only thinks like a snotty 22-year-old boy. Cameron Diaz gets a
chance to parody her usual role as the perfect girlfriend, but
her appearance is too brief and too late to save this movie from
its own juvenile meanness. Some young people will probably enjoy
this movie, but when they grow older they'll be embarrassed by
that fact. --Richter
THE WATERBOY. Going into an Adam Sandler movie, I expected
his aren't-mentally-challenged-people-funny persona, an aren't-gay-guys-funny
joke or two, and maybe a cameo from a Saturday Night Live cohort.
I got all this, and so much more. This is no mindless comedy,
it's a message movie--proof that those Hollywood CEOs do care
about our futures, and the futures of our children. No one wants
that "Mommy, what were trees like?" bumper sticker to
come true, so the masterminds behind The Waterboy demonstrate
the importance of environmental consciousness by recycling the
Forrest Gump script. It killed enough trees, so these eco-friendly
folks simply took the story of an oddly athletic man with a IQ
of 90 and set it on a football field. And to fill in plotholes
without wasting additional paper, there's lots of recycled music
(from Rush to Anita Ward) to help you along. For example, when
Waterboy is awfully lonely, "Lonely Boy" plays in the
background. Get it? Apparently careers are reusable, too, as witnessed
by the dynamic screen presence of Henry Winkler as a coach. The
funniest parts, though, are the recycled stereotypes. Southerners
are especially hee-larious, what with those durn accents and all.--Higgins
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. Hamlet fretted over what dreams may
come when we shuffle off this mortal coil, but Robin Williams
doesn't have to worry, because he's already been to heaven. And
Annabella Sciorra has been to hell. This well-intentioned but
stupid mutation of the Orpheus story (based on the novel by Richard
Matheson) concerns a very happy couple who like each other a lot.
In fact, Christy and Annie Nielsen (Williams and Sciorra) are
soulmates. They have it all: an upscale life, a nanny, expensive
objects, until their kids die in a car crash, and then Christy
dies in one, too. Eventually he ends up in heaven, and his wife
ends up in hell--Max Von Sydow plays the shrink-turned-ferryman
who navigates between the two. The special effects are pretty
darn nifty here, and as a welcome relief, they don't involve any
shooting or blowing up. But the freshman-level philosophy ("You
know who you are because you think you do!" ) and tons of
painful psychoblather shove this movie into the fiery depths of
banality. There is one good part: We get to hear Robin Williams
called "Christy" for two hours, evoking images of a
freshly scrubbed teenage girl in a tennis skirt. --Richter
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