From: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com (movies-digest) To: movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: movies-digest V2 #395 Reply-To: movies-digest Sender: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk movies-digest Friday, December 27 2002 Volume 02 : Number 395 [MV] ADAPTATION / **** (R) [MV] THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE / *** (PG) [MV] ABOUT SCHMIDT / ***1/2 (R) [MV] ANTWONE FISHER / ***1/2 (PG-13) [MV] please remove from mailing list!!! [MV] SINGIN' IN THE RAIN / **** (G) [MV] RABBIT-PROOF FENCE / *** 1/2 (PG) [MV] CATCH ME IF YOU CAN / *** (PG-13) [MV] THE HOURS / ***1/2 (PG-13) [MV] CHICAGO / ***1/2 (PG-13) [MV] THE LION KING / *** 1/2 (G) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Dec 2002 22:21:27 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] ADAPTATION / **** (R) ADAPTATION / **** (R) December 20, 2002 Charlie/Donald Kaufman: Nicolas Cage Susan Orlean: Meryl Streep John Laroche: Chris Cooper Valerie: Tilda Swinton Robert McKee: Brian Cox Amelia: Cara Seymour Caroline: Maggie Gyllenhaal Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Spike Jonze. Written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. Based on the book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. Running time: 114 minutes. Rated R (for language, sexuality, some drug use and violent images). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT What a bewilderingly brilliant and entertaining movie this is--a confounding story about orchid thieves and screenwriters, elegant New Yorkers and scruffy swamp rats, truth and fiction. "Adaptation" is a movie that leaves you breathless with curiosity, as it teases itself with the directions it might take. To watch the film is to be actively involved in the challenge of its creation. It begins with a book titled The Orchid Thief, based on a New Yorker article by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep). She writes about a Florida orchid fancier named John Laroche (Chris Cooper), who is the latest in a long history of men so obsessed by orchids that they would steal and kill for them. Laroche is a con man who believes he has found a foolproof way to poach orchids from protected Florida Everglades; since they were ancestral Indian lands, he will hire Indians who can pick the orchids with impunity. Now that story might make a movie, but it's not the story of "Adaptation." As the film opens, a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) has been hired to adapt the book, and is stuck. There is so much about orchids in the book, and no obvious dramatic story line. Having penetrated halfway into the book myself, I understood his problem: It's a great story, but is it a movie? Charlie is distraught. His producer, Valerie (Tilda Swinton), is on his case. Where is the first draft? He hardly has a first page. He relates his agony in voiceover, and anyone who has ever tried to write will understand his system of rewards and punishments: Should he wait until he has written a page to eat the muffin, or ... Charlie has a brother named Donald (also played by Cage). Donald lacks Charlie's ethics, his taste, his intelligence. He cheerfully admits that all he wants to do is write a potboiler and get rich. He attends the screenwriting seminars of Robert McKee (Brian Cox), who breaks down movie classics, sucks the marrow from their bones and urges students to copy the formula. At a moment when Charlie is suicidal with frustration, Donald triumphantly announces he has sold a screenplay for a million dollars. What is Charlie to do? To complicate matters, he has developed a fixation, even a crush, on Susan Orlean. He journeys to New York, shadows her, is too shy to meet her. She in turn goes to Florida to interview Laroche, who smells and smokes and has missing front teeth, but whose passion makes him .. interesting. And now my plot description will end, as I assure you I have not even hinted at the diabolical developments still to come. "Adaptation" is some kind of a filmmaking miracle, a film that is at one and the same time (a) the story of a movie being made, (b) the story of orchid thievery and criminal conspiracies, and (c) a deceptive combination of fiction and real life. The movie has been directed by Spike Jonze, who with Charlie Kaufman as writer made "Being John Malkovich," the best film of 1999. If you saw that film, you will (a) know what to expect this time, and (b) be wrong in countless ways. There are real people in this film who are really real, like Malkovich, Jonze, John Cusack and Catherine Keener, playing themselves. People who are real but are played by actors, like Susan Orlean, Robert McKee, John Laroche and Charlie Kaufman. People who are apparently not real, like Donald Kaufman, despite the fact that he shares the screenplay credit. There are times when we are watching more or less exactly what must (or could) have happened, and then a time when the film seems to jump the rails and head straight for the swamps of McKee's theories. During all of its dazzling twists and turns, the movie remains consistently fascinating not just because of the direction and writing, but because of the lighthearted darkness of the performances. Chris Cooper plays a con man of extraordinary intelligence, who is attractive to a sophisticated New Yorker because he is so intensely himself in a world where few people are anybody. Nicolas Cage, as the twins, gets so deeply inside their opposite characters that we can always tell them apart even though he uses no tricks of makeup or hair. His narration creates the desperate agony of a man so smart he understands his problems intimately, yet so neurotic he is captive to them. Now as for Meryl Streep, well, it helps to know (since she plays in so many serious films) that in her private life she is one of the merriest of women, because here she is able to begin as a studious New Yorker author and end as, more or less, Katharine Hepburn in "The African Queen." I sat up during this movie. I leaned forward. I was completely engaged. It toyed with me, tricked me, played straight with me, then tricked me about that. Its characters are colorful because they care so intensely; they are more interested in their obsessions than they are in the movie, if you see what I mean. And all the time, uncoiling beneath the surface of the film, is the audacious surprise of the last 20 minutes, in which--well, to say the movie's ending works on more than one level is not to imply it works on only two. 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 Dec 2002 22:21:42 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE / *** (PG) THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE / *** (PG) December 20, 2002 Featuring the voices of: Eliza Thornberry: Lacey Chabert Darwin the Monkey: Tom Kane Donnie Thornberry: Michael Balzary (Flea) Nigel Thornberry: Tim Curry Marianne Thornberry: Jodi Carlisle Debbie Thornberry: Danielle Harris Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present a film directed by Cathy Malkasian and Jeff McGrath. Written by Kate Boutilier. Running time: 88 minutes. Rated PG (for some adventure peril). BY ROGER EBERT "The Wild Thornberrys Movie" is a jolly surprise, an energetic and eccentric animated cartoon about a decidedly peculiar family making a documentary in Africa. They prowl the plains in their Winnebago, while Mom operates the camera, Dad lectures on nature and young Eliza Thornberry talks to the animals. Yes, by saving a tribal priest from a warthog, she has been given this gift on one condition--that she not tell anyone (human) about it. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the animals are as intelligent and well-spoken as the humans. The family is drawn in the cheerful, colorful style of "Rugrats," and indeed co-director Jeff McGrath even worked on the "Rugrats" TV series. Cathy Malkasian, the top-billed co-director, has worked on everything from the "Jumanji" TV series to the Nickelodeon version of the "Thornberrys" itself. Many kids will already know Eliza (voice of Lacey Chabert) and her family. Her parents, Nigel and Marianne (Tim Curry and Jodi Carlisle), are British, but Eliza is all-American, and her older sister, Debbie (Danielle Harris), sounds like a Valley Girl ("that's so wrong," she says, confronted with the bright red hind quarters of an ape). Her younger stepbrother, Donnie Thornberry (Michael Balzary, aka Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), speaks an unknown language, incessantly. Eliza's best friend is Darwin the monkey (Tom Kane), who sounds upper-class British and is an analyst of the passing scene. Eliza and Darwin move fearlessly across the plain, protected by her ability to speak to the animals, and one day she persuades Akela the panther (Alfre Woodard) to let her take her three cubs to play. Alas, one of the cubs is snatched by poachers in a helicopter, setting up a thrilling adventure in which Eliza eventually saves an entire herd of elephants from extinction. But of course the story I've described could be told in a dreary, plodding style. The charm of "The Wild Thornberrys Movie" comes from its zany visual style, the energy of the voiceover actors and the fine balance of action that is thrilling but not too scary. Eliza is a plucky heroine, determined and brave, and the poachers never really have a chance. There are other elements in the movie, including a trip to boarding school in England, not enjoyed by either Eliza or Darwin, and various innocent bathroom jokes, mostly involving animals; kids have a special fascination for such material, I guess, and here it's handled as tastefully as such tasteless material can be. The movie reaches just a little further than we expect with the addition of characters such as Nigel Thornberry's parents (his mother is not amused to find worms in her tea) and the poachers Bree and Sloan Blackburn (Marisa Tomei and Rupert Everett), who are not simply villains willing to exterminate hundreds of elephants, but so unashamed about it that their attitude is scarier than their actions. Will such people stop at nothing? Next thing you know, they'll be permitting snowmobiles in our national parks. 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 Dec 2002 22:21:26 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] ABOUT SCHMIDT / ***1/2 (R) ABOUT SCHMIDT / ***1/2 (R) December 20, 2002 Warren Schmidt: Jack Nicholson Jeannie: Hope Davis Randall Hertzel: Dermot Mulroney Helen Schmidt: June Squibb Roberta Hertzel: Kathy Bates Larry: Howard Hesseman Christina Belford: Christine Belford New Line Cinema presents a film directed by Alexander Payne. Written by Payne and Jim Taylor. Based on the novel by Louis Begley. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated R (for some language and brief nudity). BY ROGER EBERT Warren Schmidt is a man without resources. He has no intellectual curiosity. May never have read a book for pleasure. Lives in a home "decorated" with sets of collector's items accumulated by his wife, each in the display case that came with the items. On his retirement day, he is left with nothing but time on his empty hands. He has spent his entire life working at a job that could have been done by anybody, or, apparently, nobody. He goes to the office to see if he can answer any questions that the new guy might have, but the new guy doesn't. In a lifetime of work, Warren Schmidt has not accumulated even one piece of information that is needed by his replacement. "The mass of men," Thoreau famously observed, "lead lives of quiet desperation." Schmidt is such a man. Jack Nicholson is not such a man, and is famous for the zest he brings to living. It is an act of self-effacement that Nicholson is able to inhabit Schmidt and give him life and sadness. It is not true to say that Nicholson disappears into the character, because he is always in plain view, the most watchable of actors. His approach is to renounce all of his mannerisms, even the readiness with which he holds himself onscreen, and withdraw into the desperation of Schmidt. Usually we watch Nicholson because of his wicked energy and style; here we are fascinated by their absence. "About Schmidt," directed by Alexander Payne, written by Payne and Jim Taylor, is not about a man who goes on a journey to find himself, because there is no one to find. When Schmidt gets into his 35-foot Winnebago Adventurer, which he and his wife Helen thought to use in his retirement, it is not an act of curiosity but of desperation: He has no place else to turn. The film's opening scenes show him suffering through a meaningless retirement dinner and returning home to ask himself, after 42 years of marriage, "Who is this old woman who is in my house?" His wife might ask the same question about her old man. They have lived dutiful and obedient lives, he as an actuary for the Woodman of the World Insurance Co. in Omaha, Neb., she as a housewife and mother, and now that the corporate world has discarded them they have no other role to assume. Helen (June Squibb) makes an effort to be cheerful, and surprises him with breakfast in the Adventurer the morning after his retirement dinner, but breakfast is a cheerless meal when it does not begin a day with a purpose. Then Helen drops dead. Warren is astonished and bereft, not at the enormity of his loss, but that he had so little to lose. Here is a man who did not "plan for retirement." "About Schmidt" has backed itself into a corner with its hero, who is so limited it would be torture to watch him for two hours, even played by Nicholson. The film puts Schmidt on the road, in a reversal of Nicholson's youthful journey in "Easy Rider." He and the film are in search of life, and find it in his daughter's plans to marry a man he (correctly) perceives as a buffoon and a fraud. The humor in the film comes mostly from the daughter (Hope Davis, fed up with him) and the family she is marrying into. Schmidt's new in-laws include Randall Hertzel (Dermot Mulroney), a water-bed salesman and promoter of pyramid schemes, and his mother Roberta (Kathy Bates), who embraces the life force with a bone-crushing squeeze. Schmidt, who has hardly has a surprise in 40 years, now finds himself wrestling with a water bed, and joined in a hot tub by the topless and terrifyingly available Roberta. Roberta is intended as a figure of fun, but at least she approaches life hungrily and with good cheer. This is one of Bates' best performances, as a woman of outsize charm and personality, who can turn on a dime to reveal impatience and anger. Her selfishness helps us observe that Schmidt is not a selfish man, mostly because there is nothing he has that he wants and nothing he lacks that he cares about. Schmidt has one relationship in his life that gives him a place to spill out his fears and discontents. After watching a TV ad for a world childrens' charity, he "adopts" a 6-year-old Tanzanian named Ndugu. Encouraged to write to the boy, he spills out his thoughts in long confessional letters. It is impossible to be sure if he thinks Ndugu can read the letters, or understand them, or if he has such a painful need to find a listener that Ndugu will do. Certainly there is no one in America who Schmidt would be able to talk to with such frankness. "About Schmidt" is essentially a portrait of a man without qualities, baffled by the emotions and needs of others. That Jack Nicholson makes this man so watchable is a tribute not only to his craft, but to his legend: Jack is so unlike Schmidt that his performance generates a certain awe. Another actor might have made the character too tragic or passive or empty, but Nicholson somehow finds within Schmidt a slowing developing hunger, a desire to start living now that the time is almost gone. "About Schmidt" is billed as a comedy. It is funny to the degree that Nicholson is funny playing Schmidt, and funny in terms of some of his adventures, but at bottom it is tragic. In a mobile home camp, Schmidt is told by a woman who hardly knows him, "I see inside of you a sad man." Most teenagers will probably not be drawn to this movie, but they should attend. Let it be a lesson to them. If they define their lives only in terms of a good job, a good paycheck and a comfortable suburban existence, they could end up like Schmidt, dead in the water. They should start paying attention to that crazy English teacher. 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 Dec 2002 22:21:29 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] ANTWONE FISHER / ***1/2 (PG-13) ANTWONE FISHER / ***1/2 (PG-13) December 20, 2002 Antwone Fisher: Derek Luke Cheryl: Joy Bryant Jerome Davenport: Denzel Washington Berta: Salli Richardson Mrs. Tate: Novella Nelson Annette: Vernee Watson Johnson Eva: Viola Davis James: Earl Billings Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film directed by Denzel Washington. Written by Antwone Fisher. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violence, language and mature thematic material involving child abuse). BY ROGER EBERT Antwone Fisher is a good sailor but he has a hair-trigger temper, and it lands him in the office of the base psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Davenport. He refuses to talk. Davenport says he can wait. Naval regulations require them to have three sessions of therapy, and the first session doesn't start until Antwone talks. So week after week, Antwone sits there while the doctor does paperwork, until finally they have a conversation: "I understand you like to fight." "That's the only way some people learn." "But you pay the price for teaching them." This conversation will continue, in one form or another, until Fisher (Derek Luke) has returned to the origin of his troubles, and Davenport (Denzel Washington) has made some discoveries as well. "Antwone Fisher," based on the true story of the man who wrote the screenplay, is a film that begins with the everyday lives of naval personnel in San Diego and ends with scenes so true and heartbreaking that tears welled up in my eyes both times I saw the film. I do not cry easily at the movies; years can go past without tears. I have noticed that when I am deeply affected emotionally, it is not by sadness so much as by goodness. Antwone Fisher has a confrontation with his past, and a speech to the mother who abandoned him, and a reunion with his family, that create great, heartbreaking, joyous moments. The story behind the film is extraordinary. Fisher was a security guard at the Sony studio in Hollywood when his screenplay came to the attention of the producers. Denzel Washington was so impressed he chose it for his directorial debut. The newcomer Derek Luke, cast in the crucial central role after dozens of more experienced actors had been auditioned, turned out to be a friend of Antwone's; he didn't tell that to the filmmakers because he thought it would hurt his chances. The film is based on truth but some characters and events have been dramatized, we are told at the end. That is the case with every "true story." The film opens with a dream image that will resonate through the film: Antwone, as a child, is welcomed to a dinner table by all the members of his family, past and present. He awakens from his dream to the different reality of life on board an aircraft carrier. He will eventually tell Davenport that his father was murdered two months before he was born, that his mother was in prison at the time and abandoned him, and that he was raised in a cruel foster home. Another blow came when his closest childhood friend was killed in a robbery. Antwone, who is constitutionally incapable of crime, considers that an abandonment, too. As Antwone's weekly sessions continue, he meets another young sailor, Cheryl Smolley (Joy Bryant). He is shy around her, asks Davenport for tips on dating, keeps it a secret that he is still a virgin. In a time when movie romances end in bed within a scene or two, their relationship is sweet and innocent. He is troubled, he even gets in another fight, but she sees that he has a good heart and she believes in him. Davenport argues with the young man that all of his troubles come down to a need to deal with his past. He needs to return to Ohio and see if he can find family members. He needs closure. At first Fisher resists these doctor's orders, but finally, with Cheryl's help, he flies back. And that is where the preparation of the early scenes pays off in confrontations of extraordinary power. Without detailing what happens, I will mention three striking performances from this part of the movie, by Vernee Watson Johnson as Antwone's aunt, by Earl Billings as his uncle, and by Viola Davis as his mother. Earlier this year, Davis appeared as the maid in "Far from Heaven" and as the space-station psychiatrist in "Solaris." Now this performance. It is hard to believe it is the same actress. She hardly says a word, as Antwone spills out his heart in an emotionally shattering speech. Antwone's story is counterpointed with the story of Dr. Davenport and his wife, Berta (Salli Richardson). There are issues in their past, too, and in a sense Davenport and Fisher are in therapy together. There is a sense of anticlimax when Davenport has his last heartfelt talk with Antwone, because the film has reached its emotional climax in Ohio and there is nowhere else we want it to take us. But the relationship between the two men is handled by Washington, as the director, with close and caring attention. Hard to believe Derek Luke is a newcomer; easy to believe why Washington decided he was the right actor to play Antwone Fisher. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 18:55:48 EST From: GiselaHuntley@aol.com Subject: [MV] please remove from mailing list!!! please remove giselahuntley@aol.com [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2002 17:11:49 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] SINGIN' IN THE RAIN / **** (G) SINGIN' IN THE RAIN / **** (G) December 25, 2002 Don Lockwood: Gene Kelly Cosmo Brown: Donald O'Connor Kathy Seldon: Debbie Reynolds Lina Lamont: Jean Hagen MGM presents a film directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. Written by Adolph Green and Betty Comden. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated G. BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC A digitally remastered 50th anniversary edition of "Singin' in the Rain" opens today and runs through Jan. 3 at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport. The following is a condensed version of Roger Ebert's Great Movie essay on "Singin' in the Rain." For the complete version, go to suntimes.com/ebert. "Singin' in the Rain" has been voted one of the greatest films of all time in international critics' polls, and is routinely called the greatest of all the Hollywood musicals. I don't think there's any doubt about that. There are other contenders--"Top Hat," "Swing Time," "An American in Paris," "The Bandwagon," "Oklahoma," "West Side Story"--but "Singin' in the Rain" comes first because it is not only from Hollywood, it is about Hollywood. It is set at the moment in the late 1920s when the movies first started to talk, and many of its best gags involve technical details. The movie was cobbled together fairly quickly in 1952 to capitalize on the success of Vincente Minnelli's"An American in Paris"--which won the Academy Award as the best picture of 1951, and also starred Gene Kelly. The new movie had an original screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and new songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. But some of the songs, including the famous title tune, were anything but new. Maybe because the movie was made quickly and with a certain freedom (and because it was not based on an expensive stage property), it has a wonderfully free and improvisational feeling. We know that sequences like Donald O'Connor's neck-breaking "Make 'Em Laugh" number had to be painstakingly rehearsed, but it feels like it was made up on the spot. So does "Moses Supposes," with O'Connor and Kelly dancing on tabletops. Debbie Reynolds was still a teenager when she starred in the movie, and there is a light in her eyes to mirror the delight of her character, who is discovered leaping out of a cake at a party, and soon becomes the offscreen voice of Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), a silent star whose voice is not suited to talkies, to say the least. The movie's climax, as Reynolds flees from a theater while Kelly shouts out "Stop that girl!" and tells everyone who she is, and that he loves her, is one of those bravura romantic scenes that make you tingle no matter how often you see it. Although "Singin' in the Rain" has been on video for decades and is often shown on TV, a big-screen viewing will reveal a richness of color that your tube may not suggest. The film was photographed in bold basic colors--the yellow raincoats are an emblem--and Donen and his cast have an energy level that's also bold, basic and playful. But is this really the greatest Hollywood musical ever made? In a word, yes. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2002 17:11:48 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] RABBIT-PROOF FENCE / *** 1/2 (PG) RABBIT-PROOF FENCE / *** 1/2 (PG) December 25, 2002 Molly: Everlyn Sampi Daisy: Tianna Sansbury Mr. Neville: Kenneth Branagh Gracie: Laura Monaghan Moodoo: David Gulpilil Miramax Films presents a film directed by Phillip Noyce. Written by Christine Olsen. Based on the book by Doris Pilkington. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG (for emotional thematic material). BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC The most astonishing words in "Rabbit-Proof Fence" come right at the end, printed on the screen as a historical footnote. The policies depicted in the movie were enforced by the Australian government, we are told, until 1970. Aboriginal children of mixed race were taken by force from their mothers and raised in training schools that would prepare them for lives as factory workers or domestic servants. More than a century after slavery was abolished in the Western world, a Western democracy was still practicing racism of the most cruel description. The children's fathers were long gone--white construction workers or government employees who enjoyed sex with local aboriginal women and then moved on. But why could the mixed-race children not stay where they were? The offered explanations are equally vile. One is that a half-white child must be rescued from a black society. Another was that too many "white genes" would by their presumed superiority increase the power and ability of the aborigines to cause trouble by insisting on their rights. A third is that, by requiring the lighter-skinned children to marry each other, blackness could eventually be bred out of them. Of course it went without saying that the "schools" they were held in prepared them only for menial labor. The children affected are known today in Australia as the Stolen Generations. The current Australian government of Prime Minster John Howard actually still refuses to apologize for these policies. Trent Lott by comparison is enlightened. Phillip Noyce's film is fiction based on fact. The screenplay by Christine Olsen is based on a book by Doris Pilkington, telling the story of the experiences of her mother, Molly, her aunt Daisy and their cousin Gracie. Torn from their families by government officials, they were transported some 1,500 miles to a training school, where they huddled together in fear and grief, separated from everyone and everything they had ever known. When they tried to use their own language, they were told to stop "jabbering." At the time of the adventures in the movie, Molly (Everlyn Sampi) is 14, Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) is 8 and Gracie (Laura Monaghan) is 10. The school where they are held is not a Dickensian workhouse; by the standards of the time, it is not unkind (that it inflicts the unimaginable pain of separation from family and home does not figure into the thinking of the white educators). The girls cannot abide this strange and lonely place. They run away, are captured, are placed in solitary confinement. They escape again and start walking toward their homes. It will be a journey of 1,500 miles. They have within their heads an instinctive map of the way and are aided by a fence that stretches for hundreds of miles across the outback, to protect farmlands from a pestilence of rabbits. The principal white character in the movie is A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), who in 1931 was the administrator of the relocation policies and something of an amateur eugenicist, with theories of race and breeding that would have won him a ready audience in Nazi Germany. That Australians could have accepted thinking such as his, and indeed based government policy on it, indicates the sorry fact that many of them thought aborigines were a step or two down the evolutionary ladders from modern Europeans. That the aboriginal societies of Australian and New Zealand were remarkably sophisticated was hard for the whites to admit--especially because, the more one credited these native races, the more obvious it was that the land had been stolen from their possession. As the three girls flee across the vast landscape, they are pursued by white authorities and an aboriginal tracker named Moodoo (David Gulpilil), who seems not especially eager to find them. Along the way, they are helped by the kindness of strangers, even a white woman named Mavis (Deborah Mailman). This journey, which evokes some of the same mystery of the outback evoked in many other Australian films (notably "Walkabout"), is beautiful, harrowing and sometimes heartbreaking. The three young stars are all aborigines, untrained actors, and Noyce is skilled at the way he evokes their thoughts and feelings. Narration helps fill gaps and supplies details that cannot be explained onscreen. The end of the journey is not the same for all three girls, and there is more heartbreak ahead, which would be wrong for me to reveal. But I must say this. The final scene of the film contains an appearance and a revelation of astonishing emotional power; not since the last shots of "Schindler's List" have I been so overcome with the realization that real people, in recent historical times, had to undergo such inhumanity. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2002 17:11:46 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] CATCH ME IF YOU CAN / *** (PG-13) CATCH ME IF YOU CAN / *** (PG-13) December 25, 2002 Frank Abagnale Jr.: Leonardo DiCaprio Carl Hanratty: Tom Hanks Frank Abagnale Sr.: Christopher Walken Paula Abagnale: Nathalie Baye Prostitute: Jennifer Garner Brenda: Amy Adams Brenda's father: Martin Sheen DreamWorks presents a film directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Jeff Nathanson. Based on the book by Frank Abagnale Jr. and Stan Redding. Running time: 140 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content and brief language). BY ROGER EBERT The trailer for "Catch Me If You Can" is so obvious it could have written itself. It informs us that Frank Abagnale Jr. practiced medicine without attending medical school, practiced law without a law degree and passed as a pilot without attending flight school--all for the excellent reason that he did all of these things before he was 19, and had not even graduated from high school. That this is a true story probably goes without saying, since it is too preposterous to have been invented by a screenwriter. Abagnale also passed millions of dollars in bogus checks, dazzled women with his wealth and accomplishments, and was, a lot of the time, basically a sad and lonely teenager. At the time the only honest relationships in his life were with his father and with the FBI agent who was chasing him. In Steven Spielberg's new film, Abagnale is played by Leonardo DiCaprio as a young man who succeeds at his incredible impersonations by the simple device of never seeming to try very hard. While an airline employee might be suspicious of a very young-looking man who insists he is a pilot, what could be more disarming than a man offered a trip in the jump seat who confesses, "It's been awhile. Which one is the jump seat?" DiCaprio, who in recent films such as "The Beach" and "Gangs of New York" has played dark and troubled characters, is breezy and charming here, playing a boy who discovers what he is good at, and does it. There is a kind of genius flowing in the scene where he turns up for classes at a new school, walks into the classroom to discover that a substitute teacher is expected and, without missing a beat, writes his name on the blackboard, and tells the students to shut up and sit down and tell him what chapter they're on. It is probably true that most people will take you at face value until they have reason to do otherwise. I had a friend who had risen to a high level in her organization and was terrified her secret would be discovered: She never attended college. My guess, and it proved accurate, was that nobody would ever think to ask her. It is probably an even better guess that no patient in a hospital would ask to see a doctor's medical school diploma. The movie makes some attempt to explain Abagnale's behavior through adolescent trauma. He is raised by loving parents; his father, Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken), brought his French mother, Paula (Nathalie Baye), back from Europe after military service, and Frank Jr.'s childhood is a happy one until Paula cheats on her husband and walks out. Is that why her son was driven to impersonation and fraud? Maybe. Or maybe he would have anyway. Once he discovers how much he can get away with, there is a certain heady exhilaration in how easily he finds status, respect and babes. The movie co-stars Tom Hanks as Carl Hanratty, an FBI agent whose mission in life evolves into capturing Abagnale. As the only person who really has a comprehensive overview of the scope and versatility of Abagnale's activities, Hanratty develops--well, not an admiration, but a respect for a natural criminal talent. There is a scene where he actually has Abagnale at gunpoint in a motel room, and the kid, a cool customer and quick thinker, tries impersonating a Secret Service agent who is also on the suspect's tail. Much of the pleasure of the movie comes from its enjoyment of Abagnale's strategies. He doesn't seem to plan his cons very well, but to take advantage of opportunities that fall in his way. At one point, in New Orleans, he finds himself engaged to the daughter (Amy Adams) of the local district attorney (Martin Sheen). At a dinner party with his prospective in-laws, he seems to contradict himself by claiming to be both a doctor and a lawyer, when he doesn't look old enough to be either. When the D.A. presses him for an explanation, there is a kind of genius in his guileless reply: "I passed the bar in California and practiced for a year before saying, 'Why not try out pediatrics?' " Uh-huh. And then he makes the mistake of saying he graduated from law school at Berkeley. Turns out the Sheen character did, too, and quizzes him about a legendary professor before adding, "Does he still go everywhere with that little dog?" Here is where Abagnale's quickness saves him. Considering the 30-year age difference between himself and the girl's father, he simply observes, "The dog died." Yes, although the professor may well have died, too, and when the D.A. calls his bluff, he responds by being honest (although that is sort of a lie, too). This is not a major Spielberg film, although it is an effortlessly watchable one. Spielberg and his writer, Jeff Nathanson, working from the memoir by the real Frank Abagnale Jr. and Stan Redding, don't force matters or plumb for deep significance. The story is a good story, directly told, and such meaning as it has comes from the irony that the only person who completely appreciates Abagnale's accomplishments is the man trying to arrest him. At one point, when the young man calls the FBI agent, Hanratty cuts straight to the point by observing, "You didn't have anyone else to call." Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2002 17:11:45 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE HOURS / ***1/2 (PG-13) THE HOURS / ***1/2 (PG-13) December 27, 2002 Virginia Woolf: Nicole Kidman Laura Brown: Julianne Moore Clarissa Vaughan: Meryl Streep Richard: Ed Harris Leonard Woolf: Stephen Dillane Dan Brown: John C. Reilly Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Stephen Daldry. Written by David Hare. Based on the novel by Michael Cunningham. Running time: 114 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for mature thematic elements, some disturbing images and brief language.) BY ROGER EBERT Three women, three times, three places. Three suicide attempts, two successful. All linked in a way by a novel. In Sussex in 1941, the novelist Virginia Woolf fills the pockets of her coat with rocks and walks into a river to drown. In Los Angeles in 1951, Laura Brown fills her purse with pills and checks into a hotel to kill herself. In New York in 2001, Clarissa Vaughan watches as the man she was once married to decides whether to let himself fall out of a window, or not. The novel is Mrs. Dalloway, written by Woolf in 1925. It takes place in a day during which a woman has breakfast, buys flowers and prepares to throw a party. The first story in "The Hours" shows Virginia writing about the woman, the second shows Laura reading the book, the third shows Clarissa buying flowers after having said one of the famous lines of the book. All three stories in "The Hours" begin with breakfast, involve preparations for parties, end in sadness. Two of the characters in the second story appear again in the third, but the stories do not flow one from another. Instead, they all revolve around the fictional character of Mrs. Dalloway, who presents a brave face to the world but is alone, utterly alone, within herself, and locked away from the romance she desires. "The Hours," directed by Stephen Daldry and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham, doesn't try to force these three stories to parallel one another. It's more like a meditation on separate episodes linked by a certain sensibility--that of Woolf, a great novelist who wrote a little book titled A Room of One's Own that in some ways initiated modern feminism. Her observation was that throughout history women did not have a room of their own, but were on call throughout a house occupied by their husbands and families. Austen wrote her novels, Woolf observed, in a corner of a room where all the other family activities were also taking place. In "The Hours," Woolf (Nicole Kidman) has a room of her own, and the understanding of her husband, Leonard (Stephen Dillane), a publisher. Laura (Julianne Moore), whom we meet in the 1950s, is a typical suburban housewife with a loving and dependable husband (John C. Reilly) she does not love, and a son who might as well be from outer space. A surprising kiss midway through her story suggests she might have been happier living as a lesbian. Clarissa (Meryl Streep), whom we meet in the present, is living as a lesbian; she and her partner (Allison Janney) are raising a daughter (Claire Danes) and caring for Clarissa's ex-husband (Ed Harris), now dying of AIDS. (We may know, although the movie doesn't make a point of it, that Virginia Woolf was bisexual.) If this progression of the three stories shows anything, it demonstrates that personal freedom expanded greatly during the decades involved, but human responsibilities and guilts remained the governing facts of life. It also shows that suicides come in different ways for different reasons. Woolf's suicide comes during a time of clarity and sanity in her struggle with mental illness; she leaves a note for Leonard saying that she feels the madness coming on again, and wants to spare him that, out of her love for him. Laura attempts suicide out of despair; she cannot abide her life, and sees no way out of it, and the love and gratitude of her husband is simply a goad. Richard, the Ed Harris character, is in the last painful stages of dying, and so his suicide takes on still another coloration. And yet--well, the movie isn't about three approaches to sexuality, or three approaches to suicide. It may be about three versions of Mrs. Dalloway, who in the Woolf novel is outwardly a perfect hostess, the wife of a politician, but who contains other selves within, and earlier may have had lovers of both sexes. It would be possible to find parallels between Mrs. Dalloway and "The Hours"--the Ed Harris character might be a victim in the same sense as the shell-shocked veteran in the novel--but that kind of list-making belongs in term papers. For a movie audience, "The Hours" doesn't connect in a neat way, but introduces characters who illuminate mysteries of sex, duty and love. I mentioned that two of the characters in the second story appear again in the third. I will not reveal how that happens, but the fact that it happens creates an emotional vortex at the end of the film, in which we see that lives without love are devastated. Virginia and Leonard Woolf loved each other, and Clarissa treasures both of her lovers. But for the two in the movie who do not or cannot love, the price is devastating. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2002 17:11:44 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] CHICAGO / ***1/2 (PG-13) CHICAGO / ***1/2 (PG-13) December 27, 2002 Velma Kelly: Catherine Zeta-Jones Roxie Hart: Renee Zellweger Billy Flynn: Richard Gere Amos Hart: John C. Reilly Matron 'Mama' Morton: Queen Latifah Mary Sunshine: Christine Baranski Bandleader: Taye Diggs Kitty Baxter: Lucy Liu Miramax Films presents a film directed by Rob Marshall. Written by Bill Condon. Based on the musical by Fred Ebb, John Kander and Bob Fosse. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sexual content and dialogue, violence). BY ROGER EBERT "Chicago" continues the reinvention of the musical that started with "Moulin Rouge." Although modern audiences don't like to see stories interrupted by songs, apparently they like songs interrupted by stories. The movie is a dazzling song and dance extravaganza, with just enough words to support the music and allow everyone to catch their breath between songs. You can watch it like you listen to an album, over and over; the same phenomenon explains why "Moulin Rouge" was a bigger hit on DVD than in theaters. The movie stars sweet-faced Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart, who kills her lover and convinces her husband to pay for her defense; and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly, who broke up her vaudeville sister act by murdering her husband and her sister while they were engaged in a sport not licensed for in-laws. Richard Gere is Billy Flynn, the slick, high-priced attorney who boasts he can beat any rap, for a $5,000 fee. "If Jesus Christ had lived in Chicago," he explains, "and if he'd had $5,000, and had come to me--things would have turned out differently." This story, lightweight but cheerfully lurid, fueled Bob Fosse, John Kander and Fred Ebb's original stage production of "Chicago," which opened in 1975 and has been playing somewhere or other ever after--since 1997 again on Broadway. Fosse, who grew up in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, lived in a city where the daily papers roared with the kinds of headlines the movie loves. Killers were romanticized or vilified, cops and lawyers and reporters lived in each other's pockets, and newspapers read like pulp fiction. There's an inspired scene of ventriloquism and puppetry at a press conference, with all of the characters dangling from strings. For Fosse, the Chicago of Roxie Hart supplied the perfect peg to hang his famous hat. The movie doesn't update the musical so much as bring it to a high electric streamlined gloss. The director Rob Marshall, a stage veteran making his big screen debut, paces the film with gusto. It's not all breakneck production numbers, but it's never far from one. And the choreography doesn't copy Fosse's inimitable style, but it's not far from it, either; the movie sideswipes imitation on its way to homage. The decision to use non-singers and non-dancers is always controversial in musicals, especially in these days when big stars are needed to headline expensive productions. Of Zellweger and Gere, it can be said that they are persuasive in their musical roles and well cast as their characters. Zeta-Jones was, in fact, a professional dancer in London before she decided to leave the chorus line and take her chances with acting, and her dancing in the movie is a reminder of the golden days; the film opens with her "All that Jazz" number, which plays like a promise "Chicago" will have to deliver on. And what a good idea to cast Queen Latifah in the role of Mama, the prison matron; she belts out "When You're Good to Mama" with the superb assurance of a performer who knows what good is and what Mama likes. The story is inspired by the screaming headlines of the Front Page era and the decade after. We meet Roxie Hart, married early and unwisely, to Amos Hart (John C. Reilly), a credulous lunkhead. She has a lover named Fred Casely (Dominic West), who sweet-talks her with promises of stardom. When she finds out he's a two-timing liar, she guns him down, and gets a one-way ticket to Death Row, already inhabited by Velma and overseen by Mama. Can she get off? Only Billy Flynn (Gere) can pull off a trick like that, although his price is high and he sings a song in praise of his strategy ("Give 'em the old razzle-dazzle"). Velma has already captured the attention of newspaper readers, but after the poor sap Amos pays Billy his fee, a process begins to transform Roxie into a misunderstood heroine. She herself shows a certain genius in the process, as when she dramatically reveals she is pregnant with Amos' child, a claim that works only if nobody in the courtroom can count to nine. Instead of interrupting the drama with songs, Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon stage the songs more or less within Roxie's imagination, where everything is a little more supercharged than life, and even lawyers can tap-dance. (To be sure, Gere's own tap dancing is on the level of performers in the Chicago Bar Association's annual revue). There are a few moments of straight pathos, including Amos Hart's pathetic disbelief that his Roxie could have cheated on him; he sings "Mr. Cellophane" about how people see right through him. But for the most part the film runs on solid-gold cynicism. Reilly brings a kind of pathetic sincere naivete to the role--the same tone, indeed, he brings to a similar husband in "The Hours," where it is also needed. It's surprising to see the confidence in his singing and dancing, until you find out he was in musicals all through school. Zellweger is not a born hoofer, but then again Roxie Hart isn't supposed to be a star; the whole point is that she isn't, and what Zellweger invaluably contributes to the role is Roxie's dreamy infatuation with herself, and her quickly growing mastery of publicity. Velma is supposed to be a singing and dancing star, and Zeta-Jones delivers with glamor, high style and the delicious confidence the world forces on you when you are one of its most beautiful inhabitants. As for Queen Latifah, she's too young to remember Sophie Tucker, but not to channel her. "Chicago" is a musical that might have seemed unfilmable, but that was because it was assumed it had to be transformed into more conventional terms. By filming it in its own spirit, by making it frankly a stagy song-and-dance revue, by kidding the stories instead of lingering over them, the movie is big, brassy fun. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 2002 17:11:52 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE LION KING / *** 1/2 (G) THE LION KING / *** 1/2 (G) December 25, 2002 With the voices of: Simba (cub): Jonahtan Taylor Thomas Simba (adult): Matthew Broderick Mufasa: James Earl Jones Scar: Jeremy Irons Timon: Nathan Lane Pumba: Ernie Sabella Zazu : Rowan Atkinson Walt Disney Pictures presents a film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. Written by Irene Mecohi, Jonathan Roberts, Linda Woolverton and Jorgen Klubien. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated G. BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC Originally released in 1994, Disney's animated feature "The Lion King" went on to break box-office records and win two Oscars (for best score and song). Now, for a special limited engagement, the film has been reformatted for IMAX screens and its soundtrack has been digitally remixed. The following is a condensed version of Roger Ebert's review of the original "Lion King"; for the complete text, go to www.suntimes.com/ebert. My generation grew up mourning the death of Bambi's mother. Now comes "The Lion King," with the death of Mufasa, the father of the lion cub who will someday be king. The Disney animators know that cute little cartoon characters are not sufficient to manufacture dreams. There have to be dark corners, frightening moments and ancient archetypes like the crime of regicide. "The Lion King," which is a superbly drawn animated feature, is surprisingly solemn in its subject matter, and may even be too intense for very young children. "The Lion King" was the first Disney animated feature not based on an existing story. In another sense, it is based on half the stories in classical mythology. It tells the tale of the birth, childhood and eventual manhood of Simba, a lion cub. The cub's birth is announced in the opening sequence of the movie, called "The Circle of Life," which is an evocative collaboration of music and animation to show all of the animals of the African veld gathering to hail their future king. The cute little cub is held aloft from a dramatic spur of rock, and all his future minions below hail him, in a staging that looks like the jungle equivalent of a political rally. Of course this coming together of zebra and gazelle, monkey and wildebeest, fudges on the uncomfortable fact that many of these animals survive by eating one another. And all through "The Lion King," the filmmakers perform a balancing act between the fantasy of their story and the reality of the jungle. Early scenes show Simba as a cute, trusting little tike who believes everyone loves him. He is wrong. He has an enemy--his uncle Scar, the king's jealous brother, who wants to be king himself one day. Villains are often the most memorable characters in a Disney animated film, and Scar is one of the great ones, aided by a pack of yipping hyenas who act as his storm troopers. With a voice by Jeremy Irons, and facial features suggestive of Irons' gift for sardonic concealment, Scar is a mannered, manipulative schemer who succeeds in bringing about the death of the king. Worse, he convinces Simba that the cub is responsible, and the guilty little heir slinks off into the wastelands. It is an unwritten law that animated features have comic relief, usually in the form of a duet or trio of goofy characters who become buddies with the hero. This time they are a meerkat named Timon (voice by Nathan Lane) and a warthog named Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), who cheer up Simba during his long exile. Despite the comic relief, "The Lion King" is a little more subdued than "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin." The central theme is a grim one: A little cub is dispossessed, and feels responsible for the death of its father. An uncle betrays a trust. Basically what we have here is a drama, with comedy occasionally lifting the mood. The result is a surprising seriousness; this isn't the mindless romp with cute animals. Although the movie may be frightening and depressing to the very young, I think it's positive that "The Lion King" deals with real issues. By processing life's realities in stories, children can prepare themselves for more difficult lessons later on. The saga of Simba, which in its deeply buried origins owes something to Greek tragedy and certainly to "Hamlet," is a learning experience as well as an entertainment. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ End of movies-digest V2 #395 **************************** [ To quit the movies-digest mailing list (big mistake), send the message ] [ "unsubscribe movies-digest" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ]