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 A BUG'S LIFE. Antz may've beat Pixar's computer
animated insect-o-rama to the big screen, but A Bug's Life is
the far superior of the two, both for enchanting animated life
and a serviceable storyline. Where one hopes in vain for Antz'
whiny, accidental hero (Woody Allen) to get irrevocably smashed,
Bug's Flik (Dave Foley--whoever he is) is a far more dynamic
instigator. Essentially a story about two engaging screw-ups--one
a princess (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and the other an unsinkable everyman
(Foley)--who make good in the end, the most engaging aspects here
are the cinematic direction and the zippy one-liners (yes, they
saved a few for the paying audiences). Celebrity voices are well-matched
to their insectine counterparts, including Kevin Spacey as the
evil grasshopper leader, Phyllis Diller as the queenly cut-up,
and Denis Leary as a ladybug at odds with his feminine side. If
you go, be sure to stay through the credits for the animated outtakes.
--Wadsworth
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
ELIZABETH. Cate Blanchett plays the Virgin Queen, who ruled
England during Shakespeare's time. She's a sassy wench, according
to this version--a bejeweled rebel bucking the Catholic system
and following the dictates of her royal heart in all things. It's
ridiculous, but kind of fun. The court is perpetually bathed in
inky gloom, and a series of stabbings, beheadings, stake-burnings
and exotic poisonings make Elizabeth's castle look a lot riskier
than any old sorority house in a horror movie. All pretensions
to high art are abandoned early here anyway, so if it's lusty
cads in short pants and fine ladies in satin gowns you want, this
is your one-stop shopping place. If you're hoping for an intelligent
story of any sort, however, browse elsewhere.
--Richter
HAPPINESS. A funhouse view of varieties of suffering from
Todd Solondz, creator of Welcome to the Dollhouse. A New
Jersey family, featuring two miserable parents (Louise Lasser
and Ben Gazzara) and three tortured grown daughters, put themselves
and others through as much pure hell as possible. We witness a
series of sex crimes, failed relationships, bitter rejections,
and doomed quests for self as Solondz struggles to situate himself
as the Hieronymus Bosch of our times. Happiness is a comedy,
though a disturbing one, that exaggerates misery just enough so
that some people--maybe a few--might laugh at it. In any
case, it's a cheering antidote to the pat, happy endings of Hollywood
movies, and this director has a real knack for capturing the nuance
of suburban ugliness. Chairs that match the wallpaper! Endless
cubicles of office space! The doings in Happiness are more
exaggerated than in Welcome to the Dollhouse, and this
film is less likely to evoke that complex, nauseating God-that-happened-to-me
feeling of his earlier film. Nonetheless, it's an interesting,
disturbing, and sometimes amusing tour of the downside of being
alive. --Richter
HOME FRIES. Dark comedies aren't generally sweet, but cast
a ringlet-adorned Drew Barrymore as a pregnant, small town drive-thru
attendant, and you can skip those M&Ms at the concession stand.
The enjoyably convoluted story centers around two families, the
white trash, big-hearted Jacksons and the upper-class, insane
Levers, and the adultery that brings them all together. Sally
Jackson (Barrymore) dates the much older Henry Lever (Chris Ellis),
but only until she discovers he's married. His wife (Catherine
O'Hara) finds out about the affair and decides that one way to
cure a cheating heart is to manipulate her sons, Dorian (Luke
Wilson) and Angus (Jake Busey), into killing it. Dimwitted Angus
suspects Sally knows of the murder, so Dorian goes undercover
as a fry cook at the Burger-Matic where she works. In addition
to lots of cute with a capital K between Dorian and Sally, Home
Fries offers a cynical and funny look at the idealized bourgeois
family, a great cast, and practical advise, such as, "a relaxed
jaw means an open vagina." If that's not enough of a recommendation,
at least go to see the ever-enchanting Shelley Duvall as Ma Jackson.
--Higgins
JERRY SPRINGER: RINGMASTER. In the 1920s, Robert Musil
wrote his magnum opus, The Man Without Qualities, in which
he bemoaned the excessively refined culture of his age. He expressed
the belief, prevalent amongst intellectuals of the time, that
the mannered, overly civilized society of the modern world had
robbed humanity of all possibility for genuine self-expression
by virtue of its insistence on historical knowledge and schooled,
aestheticist sensitivities. Musil was wrong. Jerry Springer has
brought us living proof that humanity's most immediate and unmediated
desires are still capable of unfettered expression; that mankind
still has the capacity to push aside the constraining sublimations
of culture in order to be, freely and without shame, that which,
at basest heart, it truly is. To stress this point, here's the
finest bit of dialogue from Ringmaster: Stepfather: "Do
that other thing." Stepdaughter: "What thing?"
Stepfather: "That thing your mother won't do." I thank
God almighty that the nightmare world of literate, cultured, effete
snobs that Musil imagined so brilliantly has not overwhelmed the
world, and that there is still room for a TV show about men who
love their girlfriends' pet goats. Pull up a 40-ouncer and slide
into Ringmaster, where hope reigns supreme and foley artists
have perfected the slurpy noises that accompany oral lovemaking.
--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
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