From: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com (movies-digest) To: movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: movies-digest V2 #354 Reply-To: movies-digest Sender: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk movies-digest Monday, May 20 2002 Volume 02 : Number 354 [MV] BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13) [MV] ENIGMA / *** (R) [MV] LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13) [MV] MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R) [MV] MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG) [MV] THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG) [MV] THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13) [MV] TIME OUT / *** (PG-13) [MV] TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13) [MV] CHANGING LANES / **** (R) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 May 2002 23:21:58 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13) BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13) April 19, 2002 Father: Jose Dumont Tonio: Rodrigo Santoro Mother: Rita Assemany Pacu: Ravi Ramos Lacerda Salustiano: Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos Miramax Films presents a film directed by Walter Salles. Written by Salles, Karim Ainouz and Sergio Machado. Based on the book Broken April by Ismail Kadare. Running time: 91 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Rated PG-13 (for some violence and a scene of sexuality). Opening today at Landmark Century. BY ROGER EBERT 'B ehind the Sun" describes a blood feud elevated to the dignity of tragedy. It takes place in a rural area of Brazil, but it could be set instead in the Middle East, in Bosnia, in India, in Africa, in any of those places where people kill each other because of who their parents were. Religion, which is often cited as a justification for these killings, is just a smoke screen for tribalism. The killings spring out of a universal human tendency to dislike anyone who is not like we are. The movie takes place in 1910. Two families live on either side of a cane field. The Ferreiras are richer, live in a sprawling villa, have an extended family. The Breves family is poorer, humble, hard-working. Since time immemorial there has been a feud between these two families, springing from some long-forgotten disagreement over land. Over time a set of ground rules has grown up: First a Ferreira man (or a Breves man) kills a Breves (or a Ferreira) man, and then the tables are turned. If it only amounted to that, all the Breves and Ferreiras would be dead, or one side would have won. Certain customs somewhat slow the pace of the killing. When someone has been killed, his blood-stained shirt is left out in the sun to dry, and there is a truce until the red has turned yellow. Despite the predictable timetable that would seem to operate, the next victim is somehow always unprepared, as we see when a young Breves stalks his quarry one night after a shirt has turned yellow. We meet Pacu, "the Kid" (Ravi Ramos Lacerda), youngest son of the Breves family, who knows that since his adored older brother Tonio (Rodrigo Santoro) has killed a Ferreira, it is only a matter of time until the blood fades and Tonio is killed. While the ominous waiting period continues, a troupe of itinerant circus performers passes through, and the Kid meets the ringmaster and his sultry fire-eating star. They give him a picture book about the sea, which, wouldn't you know, encourages him to dream about a world different from the one he knows. The circus itself offers an alternative vision, not that the cheerless sugar cane feud doesn't make anything look preferable. Tonio meets the fire-breather and is thunderstruck by love, and there is the possibility that, yes, he might run away with the circus. More than this I dare not reveal, except to hint that the age-old fate of the two families must play out under the implacable sun. "Behind the Sun" is a good-looking movie, directed by Walter Salles, who was much praised for his 1999 Oscar-nominated "Central Station," also about a young boy whose life is scarred by the cruelty of his elders. It has some of the simplicity and starkness of classical tragedy, but what made me impatient was its fascination with the macho bloodlust of the two families. Since neither family has evolved to the point where it can see the futility of killing and the pointlessness of their deadly ritual, it was hard for me to keep from feeling they were getting what they deserved. Sure, I hoped Tonio would get the girl and the Kid would see the ocean, but these are limited people and we can care about them only if we buy into their endless cycle of revenge and reprisal. After a certain point, no one is right and no one is wrong, both sides have boundless grievances, and it's the audience that wants to run away with the circus. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:06 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] ENIGMA / *** (R) ENIGMA / *** (R) April 19, 2002 Tom Jericho: Dougray Scott Hester Wallace: Kate Winslet Wigram: Jeremy Northam Claire Romilly: Saffron Burrows "Puck" Pukowski: Nikolaj Coster Waldau Logie: Tom Hollander Admiral Trowbridge: Corin Redgrave Cave: Matthew MacFadyen Manhattan Pictures International presents a film directed by Michael Apted. Written by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Robert Harris. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R (for a sex scene and language). Opening today at Landmark Century. BY ROGER EBERT World War II may have been won by our side because of what British code-breakers accomplished at a countryside retreat named Bletchley Park. There they broke, and broke again, the German code named "Enigma," which was thought to be unbreakable, and was used by the Nazis to direct their submarine convoys in the North Atlantic. Enigma was decoded with the help of a machine, and the British had captured one, but the machine alone was not enough. My notes, scribbled in the dark, indicate the machine had 4,000 million trillion different positions--a whole lot, anyway--and the mathematicians and cryptologists at Bletchley used educated guesses and primitive early computers to try to penetrate a message to the point where it could be tested on Enigma. For those who get their history from the movies, "Enigma" will be puzzling, since "U-571" (2000) indicates Americans captured an Enigma machine from a German submarine in 1944. That sub is on display here at the Museum of Science and Industry, but no Enigma machine was involved. An Enigma machine was obtained, not by Americans but by the British ship HMS Bulldog, when it captured U-110 on May 9, 1941. Purists about historical accuracy in films will nevertheless notice that "Enigma" is not blameless; it makes no mention of Alan Turing, the genius of British code-breaking and a key theoretician of computers, who was as responsible as anyone for breaking the Enigma code. Turing was a homosexual, eventually hounded into suicide by British laws, and is replaced here by a fictional and resolutely heterosexual hero named Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott). And just as well, since the hounds of full disclosure who dogged "A Beautiful Mind" would no doubt be asking why "Enigma" contained no details about Turing's sex life. The movie, directed by the superb Michael Apted, is based on a literate, absorbing thriller by Robert Harris, who portrays Bletchley as a hothouse of intrigue in which Britain's most brilliant mathematicians worked against the clock to break German codes and warn North Atlantic convoys. As the film opens, the Germans have changed their code again, making it even more fiendishly difficult to break (from my notes: "150 million million million ways of doing it," but alas I did not note what "it" was). Tom Jericho, sent home from Bletchley after a nervous breakdown, has been summoned back to the enclave because even if he is a wreck, maybe his brilliance can be of help. Why did Jericho have a breakdown? Not because of a mathematical stalemate, but because he was overthrown by Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), the beautiful Bletchley colleague he loved, who disappeared mysteriously without saying goodbye. Back on the job, he grows chummy with Claire's former roommate Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), who may have clues about Claire even though she doesn't realize it. Then, in a subtle, oblique way, Tom and Hester begin to get more than chummy. All the time Wigram (Jeremy Northam), an intelligence operative, is keeping an eye on Tom and Hester, because he thinks they may know more than they admit about Claire--and because Claire may have been passing secrets to the Germans. Whether any of these speculations are fruitful, I will allow you to discover. What I like about the movie is its combination of suspense and intelligence. If it does not quite explain exactly how decryption works (how could it?), it at least gives us a good idea of how decrypters work, and we understand how crucial Bletchley was--so crucial its existence was kept a secret for 30 years. When the fact that the British had broken Enigma finally became known, histories of the war had to be rewritten; a recent biography of Churchill suggests, for example, that when he strode boldly on the rooftop of the Admiralty in London, it was because secret Enigma messages assured him there would be no air raids that night. The British have a way of not wanting to seem to care very much. It seasons their thrillers. American heroes are stalwart, forthright and focused; Brits like understatement and sly digs. The tension between Tom Jericho and Wigram is all the more interesting because both characters seem to be acting in their own little play some of the time, and are as interested in the verbal fencing as in the underlying disagreement. It is a battle of style. You can see similar fencing personalities in the world of Graham Greene, and of course it is the key to James Bond. Kate Winslet is very good here, plucky, wearing sensible shoes, with the wrong haircut--and then, seen in the right light, as a little proletarian sex bomb. She moves between dowdy and sexy so easily, it must mystify even her. Claire, when she is seen, is portrayed by Saffron Burrows as the kind of woman any sensible man knows cannot be kept in his net--which is why she attracts a masochistic romantic like Tom Jericho, who sets himself up for his own betrayal. If it is true (and it is) that "Pearl Harbor" is the story of how the Japanese staged a sneak attack on an American love triangle, at least "Enigma" is not about how the Nazis devised their code to undermine a British love triangle. That is true not least because the British place puzzle-solving at least on a par with sex, and like to conduct their affairs while on (not as a substitute for) duty. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:18 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13) LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13) April 19, 2002 Jimmy: James Nesbitt Annabel: Olivia Williams Cliff: Timothy Spall Roger: Bill Nighy Rudy: Lennie James Graham Mortimer: Christopher Plummer Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Peter Cattaneo. Written by Ronan Bennett. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for brief strong language and some sexual references). BY ROGER EBERT "Lucky Break" is the new film by Peter Cattaneo, whose "The Full Monty" is the little British comedy that added a useful expression to the language. This movie is set in prison but uses much the same formula: A group of guys without much hope decide to band together and put on a show. This time they stage a musical comedy written by the prison warden, which means that instead of stripping, they perform in costume. I am not sure if this is the half monty, or no monty at all. British prisons are no doubt depressing and violent places in real life, but in "Lucky Break," the recent "Borstal Boy" and the summer 2001 movie "Greenfingers," they are not only benign places with benevolent governors, but provide remarkable access to attractive young women. Jimmy, the hero of "Lucky Break," finds abundant time to fall in love with Annabel (Olivia Williams), the prison anger-management counselor. Brendan Behan, the hero of the biopic "Borstal Boy," has a youthful romance with Liz, the warden's daughter. And in "Greenfingers," which is about a prize-winning team of prison gardeners, one of the green-thumbsmen falls in love with the daughter of a famous TV garden lady. Only in these movies is prison a great place for a wayward lad to go in order to meet the right girl. "Lucky Break" stars James Nesbitt and Lennie James as Jimmy and Rudy, partners in an ill-conceived bank robbery that lands them both in prison. The prison governor (Christopher Plummer) is an amateur playwright who has written a musical based on the life of Admiral Nelson, whose statue provides a congenial resting place for pigeons in Trafalgar Square. The lads agree to join in a prison production of the musical after learning that the play will be staged in the old prison chapel--which they consider the ideal place from which to launch a prison break. Much of the humor of the film comes from the production of "Nelson, the Musical," with book and lyrics by the invaluable actor and comic writer Stephen Fry; we hear a lot of the songs, see enough of scenes to get an idea of the awfulness, and hardly notice as the prison break segues into a movie about opening night and backstage romance. I am not sure that the average prisoner has unlimited opportunities to spend time alone with beautiful young anger-management counselors, warden's daughters or assistant TV gardeners, but in "Lucky Break," so generous is the private time that Jimmy and Annabel even share a candlelight dinner. To be sure, a can of sardines is all that's served, but it's the thought that counts. The key supporting role is by Timothy Spall, sort of a plump, British Steve Buscemi--a sad sack with a mournful face and the air of always trying to cheer himself up. What keeps him going is his love for his young son; this whole subplot is more serious and touching than the rest of the film, although it leads to a scene perhaps more depressing than a comedy should be asked to sustain. The climax of the film, as in "The Full Monty," is the long-awaited stage performance, which goes on as various subplots solve themselves, or not, backstage. There is not much here that comes as a blinding plot revelation, but the movie has a raffish charm and good-hearted characters, and like "The Full Monty" it makes good use of the desperation beneath the comedy. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:31 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R) MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R) April 19, 2002 Cassie Mayweather: Sandra Bullock Richard Haywood: Ryan Gosling Justin Pendleton: Michael Pitt Sam Kennedy: Ben Chaplin Lisa: Agnes Bruckner Ray: Chris Penn Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Barbet Schroeder. Written by Tony Gayton. Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (for violence, language, a sex scene and brief drug use). BY ROGER EBERT Richard and Justin, the high school killers in "Murder by Numbers," may not have heard of Leopold and Loeb, or seen Hitchcock's "Rope," or studied any of the other fictional versions ("Compulsion," "Swoon") of the infamous murder pact between two brainy and amoral young men. But they're channeling it. "Murder by Numbers" crosses Leopold/Loeb with a police procedural and adds an interesting touch: Instead of toying with the audience, it toys with the characters. We have information they desperately desire, and we watch them dueling in misdirection. The movie stars Sandra Bullock as Cassie Mayweather, a veteran detective, experienced enough to trust her hunches and resist the obvious answers. Ben Chaplin is Sam Kennedy, her by-the-book partner, the kind of cop who gets an A for every step of his investigation but ends up with the wrong conclusion. Paired against them are Richard Haywood and Justin Pendleton (Ryan Gosling, from "The Believer," and Michael Pitt, from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"). These are two brainy high school kids, fascinated as Leopold and Loeb were by the possibility of proving their superiority by committing the perfect murder. Their plan: Pick a victim completely at random, so that there is no link between corpse and killers, and leave behind no clues. The film opens with the suggestion of a suicide pact between the two teenagers, who face each other, holding revolvers to their heads, in a crumbling gothic building so improbably close to the edge of a seaside cliff that we intuit someone is going to be dangling over it by the end of the film. Bullock's Cassie is the central character, a good cop but a damaged human being, whose past holds some kind of fearsome grip on her present. Cassie and Sam are assigned to a creepy case; the body of a middle-aged female has been found in a wooded area, and close analysis of clues (hair, strands from a rug) seems to lead back to a suspect. Sam is happy to follow the clues to their logical conclusion. Cassie isn't so sure, and a chance meeting with one of the young sociopaths leads to a suspicion: "Something's not right with that kid." We learn a lot about police work in "Murder by Numbers," and there's a kind of fascination in seeing the jigsaw puzzle fall into place, especially since the audience holds some (but not all) of the key pieces. Many of the best scenes involve an intellectual and emotional duel between the two young men, who seem to have paused on the brink of becoming lovers and decided to sublimate that passion into an arrogant crime. Richard and Justin are smart--Justin smarter in an intellectual way, Richard better at manipulating others. The movie wisely reserves details of who did what in the killing, and why. These are affluent kids with absent parents, who are their own worst enemies because their arrogance leads them to play games with the cops to show how smart they are. They'd be better off posing as vacant-headed slackers. It is Cassie's intuition that the boys are inviting her attention, are turned on by the nearness of capture. Meanwhile, of course, her partner and the brass at the station are eager for a quick solution. A janitor is the obvious suspect? Arrest the janitor. The movie has been directed by the versatile Barbet Schroeder, who alternates between powerful personal films ("Our Lady of the Assassins") and skillful thrillers ("Single White Female"). When the two strands cross you get one-of-a-kind films like "Reversal of Fortune" and "Barfly." After the semi-documentary freedom and scary Colombian locations of "Our Lady of the Assassins," here's a movie which he directs as an exercise in craft--only occasionally letting his mordant humor peer through, as in an inexplicable scene where Cassie is bitten by a monkey. Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability, creating a character you'd like to like, and could like, if she weren't so sad, strange and turned in upon herself. She throws herself into police work not so much because she's dedicated as because she needs the distraction, needs to keep busy and be good to assure herself of her worth. As she draws the net closer, and runs into more danger and more official opposition, the movie more or less helplessly starts thinking to itself about that cliff above the sea, but at least the climax shows us that Bullock can stay in character no matter what. @photo.caption:Ben Chaplin and Sandra Bullock play detectives investigating the seemingly inexplicable death of a middle-age woman in Barbet Schroeder's "Murder by Numbers.'' -- Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:43 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG) MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG) April 19, 2002 Toula Portokalos: Nia Vardalos Ian Miller: John Corbett Maria: Lainie Kazan Gus: Michael Constantine Nikki: Gia Carides Nick: Louis Mandylor Angelo: Joey Fatone Rodney Miller: Bruce Gray Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Joel Zwick. Written by Nia Vardalos. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG.(for sensuality and language). BY ROGER EBERT Everyone in this movie looks like they could be a real person. The romance involves not impossibly attractive people, but a 30-year-old woman who looks OK when she pulls herself out of her Frump Phase, and a vegetarian high school teacher who urgently needs the services of Supercuts. Five minutes into the film, I relaxed, knowing it was set in the real world, and not in the Hollywood alternative universe where Julia Roberts can't get a date. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is narrated by Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), who, like all Greek women, she says, was put upon this earth for three purposes: to marry a Greek man, to have Greek children, and to feed everyone until the day she dies. Toula is still single, and works in the family restaurant (Dancing Zorbas), where, as she explains, she is not a waitress, but a "seating hostess." One day a guy with the spectacularly non-Greek name of Ian Miller (John Corbett) walks in, and she knows instinctively that marriage is thinkable. The movie is warm-hearted in the way a movie can be when it knows its people inside out. Watching it, I was reminded of Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding," about an Indian wedding. Both cultures place great emphasis on enormous extended families, enormous extended weddings, and enormous extended wedding feasts. Nia Vardalos, who not only stars but based the screenplay on her own one-woman play, obviously has great affection for her big Greek family, and a little exasperation, too--and who wouldn't, with a father who walks around with a spray jar of Windex because he is convinced it will cure anything? Or a mother who explains, "When I was your age, we didn't have food." Vardalos was an actress at Chicago's Second City when she wrote the play. The way the story goes, it was seen by Rita Wilson, a Greek-American herself, and she convinced her husband, Tom Hanks, that they had to produce it. So they did, making a small treasure of human comedy. The movie is set in Chicago but was filmed in Toronto--too bad, because the dating couple therefore doesn't have a cheezeborger at the Billy Goat. As the film opens, Toula the heroine is single at 30 and therefore a failure. Ian Miller causes her heart to leap up in love and desire, and Ian likes her, too. Really likes her. This isn't one of those formula pictures where it looks like he's going to dump her. There's enough to worry about when the families meet. "No one in our family has ever gone out with a non-Greek," Toula warns him uneasily, and indeed her parents (Lainie Kazan and Michael Constantine) regard Ian like a lesser life form. The movie is pretty straightforward: Ian and Toula meet, they date, they bashfully discover they like one another, the families uneasily coexist, the wedding becomes inevitable, and it takes place (when Ian's mother brings a Bundt cake to the wedding, no one has the slightest idea what it is). One key shot shows the church, with the bride's side jammed, and the groom's handful of WASP relatives making a pathetic show in their first four rows. Toula explains to Ian that she has 27 first cousins, and at a pre-nuptial party, she even introduces some of them: "Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nicky--and Gus." The underlying story of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" has been played out countless times as America's immigrants have intermarried. If the lovers have understanding (or at least reluctantly flexible) parents, love wins the day and the melting pot bubbles. This is nicely illustrated by Toula's father, Gus. He specializes in finding the Greek root for any word (even "kimono"), and delivers a toast in which he explains that "Miller" goes back to the Greek word for apple, and "Portokalos" is based on the Greek word for oranges, and so, he concludes triumphantly, "in the end, we're all fruits." Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:52 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG) THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG) April 19, 2002 FeaturingThe Band, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Robbie Robertson, the Staples, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Neil Young and Martin Scorsese.United Artists presents a concert documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated PG. BY ROGER EBERT I wonder if the sadness comes across on the CD. The music probably sounds happy. But the performers, seen on screen, seem curiously morose, exhausted, played out. Recently, I was at a memorial concert for the late tenor sax man Spike Robinson, and the musicians--jazz and big band veterans--were cheerful, filled with joy, happy to be there. Most of the musicians in "The Last Waltz" are, on average, 25 years younger than Spike's friends, but they drag themselves onstage like exhausted veterans of wrong wars. The rock documentary was filmed by Martin Scorsese at a farewell concert given on Thanksgiving Day 1976 by The Band, which had been performing since 1960, in recent years as the backup band for Bob Dylan. Now the film is back in a 25th anniversary restoration. "Sixteen years on the road is long enough," says Robbie Robertson, the group's leader. "Twenty years is unthinkable." There is a weight and gravity in his words that suggests he seriously doubts if he could survive four more years. Drugs are possibly involved. Memoirs recalling the filming report that cocaine was everywhere backstage. The overall tenor of the documentary suggests survivors at the ends of their ropes. They dress in dark, cheerless clothes, hide behind beards, hats and shades, pound out rote performances of old hits, don't seem to smile much at their music or each other. There is the whole pointless road warrior mystique, of hard-living men whose daily duty it is to play music and get wasted. They look tired of it. Not all of them. The women (Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris) seem immune, although what Mitchell's song is about I have no clue, and Harris is filmed in another time and place. Visitors like the Staple Singers are open-faced and happy. Eric Clapton is in the right place and time. Muddy Waters is on sublime autopilot. Lawrence Ferlinghetti reads a bad poem, badly, but seems pleased to be reading it. Neil Diamond seems puzzled to find himself in this company, grateful to be invited. But then look at the faces of Neil Young or Van Morrison. Study Robertson, whose face is kind and whose smile comes easily, but who does not project a feeling of celebration for the past or anticipation of the future. These are not musicians at the top of their art, but laborers on the last day of the job. Look in their eyes. Read their body language. "The Last Waltz" has inexplicably been called the greatest rock documentary of all time. Certainly that would be "Woodstock," which heralds the beginning of the era which The Band gathered to bury. Among 1970s contemporaries of The Band, one senses joy in the various Rolling Stones documentaries, in Chuck Berry's "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll" and in concert films by the Temptations or Rod Stewart. Not here. In "The Last Waltz," we have musicians who seem to have bad memories. Who are hanging on. Scorsese's direction is mostly limited to closeups and medium shots of performances; he ignores the audience. The movie was made at the end of a difficult period in his own life, and at a particularly hard time (the filming coincided with his work on "New York, New York"). This is not a record of serene men, filled with nostalgia, happy to be among friends. At the end, Bob Dylan himself comes on. One senses little connection between Dylan and The Band. One also wonders what he was thinking as he chose that oversized white cowboy hat, a hat so absurd that during his entire performance I could scarcely think of anything else. It is the haberdashery equivalent of an uplifted middle finger. The music probably sounds fine on a CD. Certainly it is well-rehearsed. But the overall sense of the film is of good riddance to a bad time. Even references to groupies inspire creases of pain on the faces of the rememberers: The sex must have been as bad as anything else. Watching this film, the viewer with mercy will be content to allow the musicians to embrace closure, and will not demand an encore. Yet I give it three stars? Yes, because the film is such a revealing document of a time. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:06 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13) THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13) April 19, 2002 Mathayus: The Rock Memnon: Steven Brand Balthazar: Michael Clarke Duncan The Sorceress: Kelly Hu Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Chuck Russell. Written by Stephen Sommers, William Osborne and David Hayter. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of action violence and some sensuality). BY ROGER EBERT Where do you think you are going with my horse? To Gomorrah. Nothing we can say will stop him. - --Dialogue in "The Scorpion King" A nd a wise move, too, because "The Scorpion King" is set "thousands of years before the Pyramids," so property values in Gomorrah were a good value for anyone willing to buy and hold. Here is a movie that embraces its goofiness like a Get Out of Jail Free card. The plot is recycled out of previous recycling jobs, the special effects are bad enough that you can grin at them, and the dialogue sounds like the pre-Pyramidal desert warriors are channeling a Fox sitcom (the hero refers to his camel as "my ride"). The film stars The Rock, famous as a WWF wrestling star (Vince McMahon takes a producer's credit), and on the basis of this movie, he can definitely star in movies like this. This story takes place so long ago in prehistory that The Rock was a hero and had not yet turned into the villain of "The Mummy Returns" (2001), and we can clearly see his face and muscular physique--an improvement over the earlier film, in which his scenes mostly consisted of his face being attached to a scorpion so large it looked like a giant lobster. How gigantic was the lobster? It would take a buffalo to play the Turf. The story: An evil Scorpion King named Memnon (Steven Brand) uses the talents of a sorceress (Kelly Hu) to map his battle plans, and has conquered most of his enemies. Then we meet three Arkadians, professional assassins who have been "trained for generations in the deadly art," which indicates their training began even before they were born. The Arkadian leader Mathayus, played by The Rock, is such a powerful man that early in the film he shoots a guy with an arrow and the force of the arrow sends the guy crashing through a wall and flying through the air. (No wonder he warns, "Don't touch the bow.") How The Rock morphs from this character into the "Mummy Returns" character is a mystery to me, and, I am sure, to him. Along the trail Mathayus loses some allies and gains others, including a Nubian giant (Michael Clarke Duncan), a scientist who has invented gunpowder, a clever kid and a wisecracking horse thief. The scene where they vow to kill the Scorpion King is especially impressive, as Mathayus intones, "As long as one of us still breathes, the sorcerer will die!" See if you can spot the logical loophole. Mathayus and his team invade the desert stronghold of Memnon, where the sorceress, who comes from or perhaps is the first in a long line of James Bond heroines, sets eyes on him and wonders why she's bothering with the scrawny king. Special effects send Mathayus and others catapulting into harems, falling from castle walls and narrowly missing death by fire, scorpion, poisonous cobra, swordplay, arrows, explosion and being buried up to the neck in the sand near colonies of fire ants. And that's not even counting the Valley of the Death, which inspires the neo-Mametian dialogue: "No one goes to the Valley of the Death. That's why it's called the Valley of the Death." Of all the special effects in the movie, the most impressive are the ones that keep the breasts of the many nubile maidens covered to within one centimeter of the PG-13 guidelines. Hu, a beautiful woman who looks as if she is trying to remember the good things her agent told her would happen if she took this role, has especially clever long, flowing hair, which cascades down over her breasts instead of up over her head, even when she is descending a waterfall. Did I enjoy this movie? Yeah, I did, although not quite enough to recommend it. Because it tries too hard to be hyper and not hard enough to be clever. It is what it is, though, and pretty good at it. Those who would dislike the movie are unlikely to attend it (does anybody go to see The Rock in "The Scorpion King" by accident?). For its target audience, looking for a few laughs, martial arts and stuff that blows up real good, it will be exactly what they expected. It has high energy, the action never stops, the dialogue knows it's funny, and The Rock has the authority to play the role and the fortitude to keep a straight face. I expect him to become a durable action star. There's something about the way he eats those fire ants that lets you know he's thinking, "If I ever escape from this predicament, I'm gonna come back here and fix me up a real mess of fire ants, instead of just chewing on a few at a time." Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:15 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] TIME OUT / *** (PG-13) TIME OUT / *** (PG-13) April 19, 2002 Vincent: Aurelien Recoing Muriel: Karin Viard Jean-Michel: Serge Livrozet THINKFilm presents a film directed by Laurent Cantet. Written by Cantet and Robin Campillo. Running time: 132 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sensuality). In French with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box Theatre. BY ROGER EBERT Vincent loses his job. He cannot bear to confess this to his wife and children, so he invents another one, and the fictional job takes up more of his time than his family does. It is hard work to spend all day producing the illusion of accomplishment out of thin air. Ask anyone from Enron. The new film "Time Out" is about modern forms of work that exist only because we say they do. Those best-sellers about modern management techniques are hilarious because the only things that many managers actually manage are their techniques. Free from his job, Vincent is seduced by the pleasure of getting in his car and just driving around. He lives in France, near the Swiss border, and one day he wanders into an office building in Switzerland, eavesdrops on some of the employees, picks up a brochure, and tells his relatives he works in a place like this. It's an agency associated with the United Nations, and as nearly as I can tell, its purpose is to train managers who can go to Africa and train managers. This is about right. The best way to get a job through a program designed to find you a job is to get a job with the program. Vincent, played by the sad-eyed, sincere Aurelien Recoing, is not a con man so much as a pragmatist who realizes that since his job exists mostly in his mind anyway, he might as well eliminate the middleman, his employer. He begins taking long overnight trips, sleeping in his car, finding his breakfast at cold, lonely roadside diners at daybreak. He calls his wife frequently with progress reports: the meeting went well, the client needs more time, the pro-ject team is assembling tomorrow, he has a new assignment. Since he has not figured out how to live without money, he persuades friends and relatives to invest in his fictional company, and uses that money to live on. You would think the movie would be about how this life of deception, these lonely weeks on the road, wear him down. Actually, he seems more worn out by the experience of interacting with his family during his visits at home. His wife, Muriel (Karin Viard), a schoolteacher, suspects that something is not quite convincing about this new job. What throws her off is that there was something not quite convincing about his old job, too. Vincent's father is the kind of man who, because he can never be pleased, does not distinguish between one form of displeasure and another. Vincent's children are not much interested in their dad's work. In his travels Vincent encounters Jean-Michel (Serge Livrozet), who spots him for a phony and might have a place in his organization for the right kind of phony. Jean-Michel imports fake brand-name items. What he does is not legal, but it does involve the sale and delivery of actual physical goods. He is more honest than those who simply exchange theoretical goods; Jean-Michel sells fake Guccis, Enron sells fake dollars. "Time Out" is the second film by Laurent Cantet, whose first was "Human Resources" (2000), about a young man from a working-class family who goes off to college and returns as the human resources manager at the factory where his father has worked all of his life as a punch-press operator. One of the son's tasks is to lay off many employees, including his father. The father heartbreakingly returns to his machine even after being fired, because he cannot imagine his life without a job. Vincent in a way is worse off. His job is irrelevant to his life. I admire the closing scenes of the film, which seem to ask whether our civilization offers a cure for Vincent's complaint. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:24 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13) TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13) April 19, 2002 Princess/Phocion/Aspasie: Mira Sorvino Hermocrates: Ben Kingsley Agis: Jay Rodan Leontine: Fiona Shaw Harlequin: Ignazio Oliva Paramount Classics presents a film directed by Clare Peploe. Written by Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci, based on Pierre Marivaux's 18th century play. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some nudity and sensuality). Opening today at Pipers Alley, Landmark Renaissance and Evanston CineArts 6. BY ROGER EBERT Mira Sorvino has a little teasing smile that is invaluable in "Triumph of Love," a movie where she plays a boy who does not look the slightest thing like a boy, but looks exactly like Mira Sorvino playing a boy with a teasing smile. The story, based on an 18th century French play by Pierre Marivaux, is the sort of thing that inspired operas and Shakespeare comedies: It's all premise, no plausibility, and so what? Sorvino plays a princess who goes for a stroll in the woods one day and happens upon the inspiring sight of a handsome young man named Agis (Jay Rodan) emerging naked from a swim. She knows she must have him. She also knows that he is the true possessor of her throne, that she is an usurper, and that her chances of meeting him are slim. That's because he lives as the virtual prisoner of a brother and sister, a philosopher named Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley) and a scientist named Leontine (Fiona Shaw.) Hermocrates is a scholar of the sort who, in tales of this sort, spends much time in his study pondering over quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. He wears one of those skullcaps with stars and moons on it, and a long robe, and is obsessed, although not without method. His sister, past the second bloom of her youth, is ferociously dedicated to him, and together they raise the young Agis to think rationally of all things, and to avoid the distractions of women, sex, romance, and worldly things. The scheme of the princess: She and her maid Hermidas (Rachael Stirling) will disguise themselves as young men, penetrate Hermocrates' enclave, and insinuate themselves into the good graces of the brother and sister. Then nature will take its course. This is the sort of plot, like that of "The Scorpion King," that you either accept or do not accept; if it contained martial arts, skewerings and explosions, no one would raise an eyebrow. Because it is elegant, mannered and teasing, some audiences will not want to go along with the joke. Your choice. "Triumph of Love," as a title, is literally true. Love does conquer Hermocrates, Leontine and finally Agis. Of course it is not true love in the tiresome modern sense, but romantic love as a plot device. To win Agis, the cross-dressing princess must inveigle herself into the good graces of his guardians by seducing Leontine and Hermocrates. The scene between Sorvino and Shaw is one of the most delightful in the movie, as the prim spinster allows herself reluctantly to believe that she might be irresistible--that this handsome youth might indeed have penetrated the compound hoping to seduce her. The director, Clare Peploe, stages this scene among trees and shrubbery, as the "boy" pursues the bashful sister from sun to shade to sun again. Now comes the challenge of Hermocrates. Although there are possibilities in the notion that the philosopher might be attracted to a comely young lad, the movie departs from tradition and allows Hermocrates to see through the deception at once: He knows this visitor is a girl, accuses her of it, and is told she disguised herself as a boy only to gain access to his overwhelmingly attractive presence. Hermocrates insists she only wants access to Agis. "He is not the one my heart beats for," she says shyly, and watch Ben Kingsley's face as he understands the implications. Strange, how universal is the human notion that others should find us attractive. Kingsley is the most versatile of actors, able to suggest, with a slant of the gaze, a cast of the mouth, emotional states that other actors could not achieve with cartwheels. There is a twinkle in his eye. He is as easily convinced as his sister that this visitor loves him. But is it not cruel that the ripe young impostor deceives both the brother and sister, stealing their hearts as stepping-stones for her own? Not at all, because the ending, in admirable 18th century style, tidies all loose ends, restores order to the kingdom, and allows everyone to live happily ever after, although it is in the nature of things that some will live happier than others. Clare Peploe, the wife of the great Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, was born in Tanzania, raised in Britain, educated at the Sorbonne and in Italy, began with her brother Mark as a writer on Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point," and in addition to co-writing many of Bertolucci's films, has directed three of her own. The sleeper is "High Season" (1988), a comedy set on a Greek island and involving romance, art, spies and a statue to the Unknown Tourist. If you know the John Huston movie "Beat the Devil," you will have seen its first cousin. With this film once again she shows a light-hearted playfulness. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:32 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] CHANGING LANES / **** (R) CHANGING LANES / **** (R) April 12, 2002 Gavin Banek: Ben Affleck Doyle Gipson: Samuel L. Jackson Michelle: Toni Collette Delano: Sydney Pollack Cynthia Banek: Amanda Peet Valerie Gipson: Kim Staunton Gavin's sponsor: William Hurt Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Roger Michell. Written by Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for language). BY ROGER EBERT "One wrong turn deserves another," say the ads for "Changing Lanes." Yes, both of the movie's dueling hotheads are in the wrong--but they are also both in the right. The story involves two flawed men, both prey to anger, who get involved in a fender-bender that brings out all of their worst qualities. And their best. This is not a dumb formula film about revenge. It doesn't use rubber-stamp lines like "it's payback time." It is about adults who have minds as well as emotions, and can express themselves with uncommon clarity. And it's not just about the quarrel between these two men, but about the ways they have been living their lives. The story begins with two men who need to be in court on time. A lawyer, Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck), needs to file a signed form proving that an elderly millionaire turned over control of his foundation to Banek's law firm. Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) needs to show that he has loan approval to buy a house for his family; he hopes that will convince his fed-up wife to stay in New York and not move with the kids to Oregon. Banek and Gipson get into a fender bender. It's not really anybody's fault. Of course they are polite when it happens: "You hurt?" Nobody is. Banek, who is rich and has been taught that money is a solution to human needs, doesn't want to take time to exchange insurance cards and file a report. He hands Gipson a signed blank check. Gipson, who wants to handle this the right way, doesn't want a check. Banek gets in his car and drives away, shouting, "Better luck next time!" over his shoulder, and leaving Gipson stranded in the middle of the expressway with a flat tire. Gipson gets to court 20 minutes late. The case has already been settled. In his absence, he has lost. The judge isn't interested in his story. Banek gets to court in time, but discovers that he is missing the crucial file folder with the old man's signature. Who has it? Gipson. At this point, in a film less intelligent and ambitious, the vile Banek would pull strings to make life miserable for the blameless Gipson. But "Changing Lanes" doesn't settle for the formula. Gipson responds to Banek's rudeness by faxing a page from the crucial file to Banek with Better luck next time! scrawled on it. Banek turns to his sometime mistress (Toni Collette), who knows a guy who "fixes" things. The guy (Dylan Baker) screws with Gipson's credit rating, so his home mortgage falls through. Gipson finds an ingenious way to counter-attack. And so begins a daylong struggle between two angry men. Ah, but that's far from all. "Changing Lanes" is a thoughtful film that by its very existence shames studio movies that have been dumbed down into cat-and-mouse cartoons. The screenplay is by Chap Taylor, who has previously worked as a production assistant for Woody Allen, and by Michael Tolkin, who wrote the novel and screenplay "The Player" and wrote and directed two extraordinary films, "The Rapture" and "The New Age." The writers, rookie and veteran, want to know who these men are, how they got to this day in their lives, what their values are, what kinds of worlds they live in. A dumb film would be about settling scores after the fender bender. This film, which breathes, which challenges, which is excitingly alive, wants to see these men hit their emotional bottoms. Will they learn anything? Doyle Gipson is a recovering alcoholic. His AA meetings and his AA sponsor (William Hurt) are depicted in realistic, not stereotyped, terms. Gipson is sober, but still at the mercy of his emotions. As he stands in the wreckage of his plans to save his marriage, his wife (Kim Staunton) tells him, "This is the sort of thing that always happens to you--and never happens to me unless I am in your field of gravity." And his sponsor tells him, "Booze isn't really your drug of choice. You're addicted to chaos." At one point, seething with rage, Gipson walks into a bar and orders a shot of bourbon. Then he stares at it. Then he gets into a fight that he deliberately provokes, and we realize that at some level he walked into the bar not for the drink but for the fight. Gavin Banek leads a rich and privileged life. His boss, Delano (Sydney Pollack), has just made him a partner in their Wall Street law firm. It doesn't hurt that Banek married the boss' daughter. It also doesn't hurt that he was willing to obtain the signature of a confused old man who might not have known what he was signing, and that the firm will make millions as a result. His wife (Amanda Peet) sees her husband with blinding clarity. After Banek has second thoughts about the tainted document, Pollack asks his daughter to get him into line, and at lunch she has an extraordinary speech. "Did you know my father has been cheating on my mother for 20 years?" she asks Banek. He says no, and then sheepishly adds, "Well, I didn't know it was for 20 years." Her mother knew all along, his wife says, "but she thought it would be unethical to leave a man for cheating on his marriage, after she has an enjoyed an expensive lifestyle that depends on a man who makes his money by cheating at work." She looks across the table at her husband. "I could have married an honest man," she tells him. She did not, choosing instead a man who would go right to the edge to make money. You don't work on Wall Street if you're not prepared to do that, she says. And what, for that matter, about the poor old millionaire whose foundation is being plundered? "How do you think he got his money?" Delano asks Banek. "You think those factories in Malaysia have day-care centers?" He helpfully points out that the foundation was set up in the first place as a tax dodge. Such speeches are thunderbolts in "Changing Lanes." They show the movie digging right down into the depths of the souls, of the values, of these two men. The director, Roger Michell, has made good movies including "Persuasion" and "Notting Hill," but this one seems more like Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men," or Tolkin's work. It lays these guys out and X-rays them, and by the end of the day, each man's own anger scares him more than the other guy's. This is one of the best movies of the year. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. 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