halnexus Reviews

The 6th Day (2000)

*** (Out of four)

[19 November 2000]

Arnold Schwarzenegger rose to fame playing the immortal Terminator, a character with the emotive skills of a mop. Why, then, does he appear so effective in roles like "The Sixth Day"? Here he's an everyman-type (albeit with a much larger body frame) who loves his wife, adores his child, and even has a bonding moment with a cat. What's happened to everyone's favourite Uebermensch?

"The Sixth Day" presents Schwarzenegger as an eager family man in "the very near future" with a healthy helicopter-piloting job on the side and a sick dog on the couch. Although Arnie pilots state-of-the-art chopper/plane hybrids while his partner (Michael Rapaport) talks about the benefits of his virtual-reality girlfriend whose vocabulary rarely exceeds bad double entendres, his thoughts focus less on his maneuverablity than on the moral trepidations of ordering a genetically cloned dog after the original is put to sleep.

The movie then progresses into mayhem as Ah-nuld exchanges places with his partner on a helicopter trek overseen by a malevolent geneticist (Tony Goldwyn). The partner's killed, Ah-nuld's cloned, and the real Schwarzenegger comes back to his house with a creepy "syn-pal" baby doll and discovers his clone has replaced him as head of the household.

"The Sixth Day" erupts into a display of laser-fights, political commentary and of course, Schwarzenegger's surprisingly deft comic skill. Inevitably Ah-nuld meets his clone, and as they join hands to stop the evil geneticist with a fetish for playing God, the result seems less like a narcissistic bargain (two-Arnies-for-the-price-of-one!) than an opportunity for the Austrian strongman to send his own image up yet again ("Last Action Hero" attempted to do this seven years ago, albeit less successfully).

The fascination with the best Schwarzenegger movies is not in the choreographed action ballet that he provides, but in the sound philosophical explanations resonating below the violence, presenting a mirror of the conflicts of the age. "The Terminator", released in 1984, demonstrated the futuristic uncertainty of the Cold War, while its 1991 sequel offered a more optimistic outlook as the Soviet bloc collapsed. 1990's "Total Recall" set the tone for the cynical psychology that would pervade the ensuing decade; even "True Lies" had something to say about marital rejuvenation. "The Sixth Day" addresses the cloning wars with direct parallels to the abortion debate; in the film's case, the "Fundamentalists" who oppose genetic cloning use violence as a weapon to get their message across. A subplot involving Schwarzenegger's indulgence for a good cigar in a society where tobacco is illegal reminds one either of the increased fervour of the tobacco companies' prosecution or the current outcry for marijuana legalisation.

This is the second Schwarzenegger film that offers a showcase role for a former "Godfather" player. "Eraser" had James Caan; this has Robert Duvall. Playing a genetic engineer who justifies his profession through the constant resurrection(s) of his disease-ridden wife, Duvall's wrinkled face brings an unexpected amount of emotion to the film. His presence within the film connotes that either his judgment of a good script is deteriorating (like "The Scarlet Letter") or Schwarzenegger is picking his projects with a keener emotional maturity than before. This time I'd opt for the latter.

In the end, "The Sixth Day" belongs on the second tier of Schwarzenegger opuses. Less intoxicating than his earlier action-packed romps but with more coherence than anything he's made in the last six years, the movie provides a little extra serving of philosophy to wash the curiously stale PG-13 battle scenes down. Indeed, as demonstrated by this and last year's "End of Days", Schwarzenegger has been trying to broaden his range as an actor. Whereas "End of Days" misstepped in trying to pair him with an absurd Satanic struggle, "The Sixth Day" finds just the right balance. Like "Total Recall", this is the kind of film that is less a "Schwarzenegger vehicle" than an action film where Schwarzenegger is just as incidental as everyone else.

The Wedding Singer (1998)

**** (Out of four)

[8/10 · 9 November 2000]

"Some guys have all the luck/ Some guys have all the fame/ Some guys get all the breaks/ Some guys do nothing but complain." --Rod Stewart

Ah,the 80s. The decade of Reaganomics, Iran Contra, the Challenger explosion, and the emergence of AIDS. Yet Adam Sandler maintains in this movie that it was also a decade of innocence, of New Wave rebellion, of exotic pastel colors that were intentionally garish, and of Wall Street brokers who, at least if not the epitome of Republican sleaze, were the antithesis of all things romantic. It certainly is a vast generalization of an entire decade, yet in an era where "over-the-top" was not part of the national vernacular, I'm tempted to agree.

"The Wedding Singer" takes place in a New Jersey suburb in the dog days of summer 1985. It chronicles the relationship of a nuptials entertainer (Sandler) and a waitress (Drew Barrymore) who serves at his ceremonies. Sandler is engaged to the quintessential Bananarama-inspired dress fiend and Barrymore has an ineffable low-life businessman for a beau. Together they figure out, through the course of the movie, how right they are for each other.

Movies like "The Wedding Singer" should not be judged by storyline alone. Nor should they be analyzed through such dire necessities as screenplay, set design (although the movie's is fabulous), cinematography, or out-and-out "acting". The film is a nostalgia piece, an "American Graffiti" for the 80s child, and while those cynics out there (paging Roger Ebert) are tempted to dismiss it as another hodgepodge of geriatric love cliches, those who grew up and fell in love with life during this era will most likely smile when the John Hughes-esque villain gets his comeuppance, or when the "unattractive" teenager gets to dance with the beautiful girl, or when a pre-wedding montage is set to Hall and Oates' "You Make My Dreams Come True".

I was a small little ball of wonder during the 80s, and indeed the terms "cocaine", "narcissistic" and "Nirvana" were inutterably foreign to me. Yes, I wrote letters to Punky Brewster, I danced to such trendy acts as Nu Shooz, and I went to a Midwestern drive-in where silly sci-fi's like "Lifeforce" played while the speakers blared Stacy Q songs during intermission. "Childhood" would be one way to describe it; another would be "magic".

"The Wedding Singer" placed me into that state of mind, so much so that I felt depressed after reality hit me with a swift uppercrust as I slogged out of the theater after seeing this the first time. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore were nothing but a gawky high-school nerd and a drug-addicted child starlet during the "real" 80s, yet they retained a love for the decade that shows up in this movie. The 80s may have been garish and embarrassing for some, yet it remained primarily the last decade where America functioned as a whole, rather than being split down the middle with "independent" subgenres in the worlds of politics, film and music. The spirit of the times reflected a "one last bash" attitude, where established songwriters like Rod Stewart produced their fluffiest hits. Some call it "selling out"; I call it having fun. "The Wedding Singer" takes a snapshot of the suburban innocence of an era, where cynicism had yet to filter into the middle class. Girls just wanted to have fun, computer geeks had yet to make their millions, and boys had a crush on either Molly Ringwald or Ally Sheedy. Ebert asks if the screenwriters ever stopped to think about the plot of this movie; no they didn't, Roger. That would have brought in all of the unpleasantries of the decade. For those of us far away from it all, "The Wedding Singer" is how we twenty-somethings like to remember our childhood: sweet, beautiful and substantial.

Saturday Night Live (1975– )

**** (Out of four)

[24 October 2000]

Ah, "Saturday Night Live". One of those recurring thorns-in-the-side that, like a fine wine, grows better with age. I remember my first SNL-induced experience, as a young nine-year-old ball of innate curiosity catching a first-run episode hosted by Wayne Gretzky and the Fine Young Cannibals that featured the first of many laugh riots in the form of a "Wayne's World" skit. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey's irrepressible twosome challenge Gretzky to a hockey duel, the reward being Gretzky's wife. As the skit developed, I began to chuckle profusely at the absurdity of a Gen-X slacker with the requisite Led Zeppelin fascination and long hair protruding inelegantly from his hockey mask challenging a jock of such golden-haired charm and lean affability as Gretzky. I then burst into uproarious laughter as the "hockey game" highlights were intercut with a static framing of Gretzky's wife looking lovingly on as Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver" played on the soundtrack. Of course Wayne scores (both literally and figuratively), Gretzky is stuck in a loser's dementia, and Garth moves his hands to denote the wipe that so clearly distinguishes this dreamworld from the character's alternate reality.

Yet in the end "Saturday Night Live" has become in itself an alternate reality, a way for teenage homebodies to rationalize spending an hour-and-a-half watching television on a non-school night while their more popular peers engaged in drinking parties they probably wouldn't remember the next morning. I started watching these episodes during the autumn of 1989, and thanks to SNL I learned what "masturbation" was (from the parody "Attack of the Masturbating Zombies"), was able to display my "coolness" quotient in school by describing a Nirvana performance I saw, and told my younger sister I knew who Adam Sandler was years before "Big Daddy" (or "Billy Madison", for that matter). I admit the early episodes were pioneering, yet I find the fondest memories from the 1989-98 years. During my middle school years, my friends and I would gather around the water fountain during Monday morning homeroom and recite our favorite lines from approximately thirty-six hours before (for some reason, the biggest laugh always used masturbation as a punchline, a la Christopher Walken to Julia Sweeney: "I think of you when I masturbate"). For years I garnered my newsfix not from Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, but from Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon and Norm MacDonald. As this same pack of Monday-morning friends grew into a close-knit group of high school loners, the one thing we shared in common was a Saturday-night gathering where we would watch the ABC Saturday Night Movie, Mad TV and SNL all in rapid succession. We discovered alcohol during these years, and I, thanks to a little movie called "The Wedding Singer", went on an 80s kick that I have yet to fully outgrow. The skit with Goat Boy--"Hey, Remember the 80s?"-- was one of my favorites during this period.

The inevitable happened two years ago, as I packed up for college and said goodbye to Monday-morning conversations and Saturday-night gatherings with the same group of people. I saw them recently a few months ago, all ironically enraptured in a disposable SNL-related film vehicle, yet the sense of camaraderie was not there. Frazzled about the loss of youth, I sat forlornly this summer by the tube on another restless Saturday evening and watched a rerun where Garth Brooks plays an aspiring songwriter who sells his soul for the ability to record a hit. Will Ferrell shows up as Lucifer, decked out with horns and heavy-metal regalia, all the while strumming corny ballads that would've been out-of-place at a Poison reunion tour. I laughed long and hard; "Saturday Night Live" had comforted me again. And yet, I thought to myself, perhaps this is not a good thing...

Mona Lisa (1986)

**** (Out of four)

[11 October 1999]

"Mona Lisa" is one of those weird Neil Jordan dramedies which resound with more ferocity upon afterthought than while actually watching it. Like "The Crying Game", I was left with no immediate impression of the movie, but days after watching it, I became haunted by the film's ingratiating reality. You can tell you're watching a good movie when you can describe it as "atmospheric" without the film trying overtly to reach for that effect.

Bob Hoskins stars as George, and as we first see him, he is lulling along a dismal London apartment neighborhood with a plastic bag and a fistful of flowers. As he reaches his destination, the audience soon realizes what a heartbroken journey this man's life has been. Indeed his good intentions at seeing his wife and daughter are mired by the wife's stubborn, yet understandable reaction of slamming the door in her ex-convict husband's face.

Soon George is hired by the callous gangster Mortwell (Michael Caine) as a chauffeur for the high-class call girl Simone (Cathy Tyson). He is at first repelled by the "tall black tart", as she remarks about his slovenly appearance. In a subplot structured like a revisionist feminine "Pygmalion", George is made over by the prostitute into the appearance of a "gentleman", a contempestuous appearance which only magnifies his good-hearted nature in comparison with the cold-blooded Mortwell.

Soon, however, George and Simone strike a bond seemingly based on a mutual affection for the souls lurking beneath each facade. Simone details to George an old blonde friend named Cathy still working the streets and implores him to rescue her. Jordan builds upon the elements of "Taxi Driver" here and even pays homage to that film in one scene depicting the front end of George's automobile backlit by a seedy district filled with peep shows and pedophiles.

Of course George is starting to fall for his elegant charge, but his feelings are more of a fatherly nature than anything. Simone seems to feed off this affection, as she states that she does no more than drink tea at the behest of her clients and even provides snapshots of her doing so. This is why it comes as even more of a shock to George when he accidentally discovers a porn video featuring Simone at the provocation of things which her innocent demeanor had previously rendered him incapable of imagining.

Much of "Mona Lisa" is built around human desperation, and indeed one can sense that George, like Travis Bickle or Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo", is attempting to erroneously place the puzzled-together image of the perfect woman into the jagged emotional contours of his love interest. Of course the title implies this, and Jordan reinforces this symbolization with not only the Da Vinci painting and the Nat "King" Cole ballad, but with the incandescent statues of the Virgin Mary which his friend (Robbie Coltrane) collects. This is unarguably Hoskins' best performance, in a career entirely overlooked by even the most driven of film fanatics. After roles in "The Long Good Friday", "Pink Floyd: The Wall", this, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and the upcoming "Felicia's Journey", one can deduce the sheer emotional vicissitude which compelled him to aim for, let alone attain, the raw power that comprises his characters.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

*** 1/2 (Out of four)

[11 October 1999]

Fairy tales are measured upon a sense of humor too sophisticated for its core audience but just self-reverential enough to entertain adults. Although "The Dark Crystal" takes itself perhaps just a bit too seriously for its own good, it doesn't affect the overall quality of the film. Directors Jim Henson and Frank Oz have exhaustingly combined their resources to result in one of the most visually remarkable landscapes, puppetry or otherwise, to have ever graced the wonders of the celluloid strip.

The film follows the misadventures of a heroic fawn-like character named Jen, a "gelfling" raised by the righteous Mystics during a time of darkness. Indeed as the film begins Jen is advised by his shaman-like surrogate father to retrieve the crystal shard to restore a sense of good to the universe. Unfortunately his efforts are blocked by the evil ostrich-like Skepsiks, slovenly overgrown dodos in opulent dress which remind us of the surreal vision behind Henson's imagination. With the help of a senile old lady witch-doctor who looks inspired more by the drawings of Gerald Scarfe than by the cutesiness of Henson's Muppets, Jen embarks upon a tale told a thousand times before but hardly with as much visual panache as attained here.

As the movie progresses, we are introduced to even more ornate caricatures. Of course there are the enchanting female gelfling Kira and her small Toto-like pet (inevitable reminders of "The Wizard of Oz"), a creature resembling a carnivorous plant whose digestive stomach lies embedded in the ground (one of the most wonderful effects I've ever encountered in cinema), and a bunch of beetle-like captors whose appearance in the film continues the comparison to "The Wizard of Oz" in their purposeful similarities to the flying monkeys.

Although the film cannot attain its sense of magic throughout (the ending seems perfunctory), "The Dark Crystal" nevertheless takes the casual movie-watcher to a plane so dimensionalized that it is almost a shame that latter-day movies have replaced this tangible feel with a more automated digital computerization. The film came out in 1982, and bombed badly...this is too bad, because it really is the most evident relic of Henson's bygone genius. Of course one can't blame the film, but we can blame the filmgoers of that year. This was the same year which brought us the feel-good sentiments of "E.T." and "Tootsie". Spurned were the likes of this movie, "Blade Runner" and "Pink Floyd: The Wall". The bond which links all of these films is their darkness, one which exposes the shadowy side of man's nature (or Nature in general) in an almost delicate manner. Although "The Dark Crystal" does not possess the poetic somnambulance of another overlooked children's film with dark undertones, "Babe: Pig in the City", this film would mark an extraordinary opportunity to try something new when bored by the generic harmonics of such recent Disney fare as "Pocahontas" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".

Run Lola Run (1998)

*** 1/2 (Out of four)

[9 October 1999]

While watching Tom Tykwer's "Run Lola Run", I was inevitably reminded of Mike Myers. Any closet fan of "Saturday Night Live" will remember Myers as the Post-Modern German Expressionist Dieter in one of the show's most bizarre creations, "Sprockets", where the characters would be garbed in tight black spandex and would implore others to "Touch my monkey!" Indeed even the Kraftwerk-like theme song of this skit in its own little way prognosticated the extent to which the Germans had revitalized themselves through their art. Of course the Germans have always been on the cutting edge of civilized culture: how else can one explain the great Germanics Wagner, Beethoven and Mozart, and to another extreme, their Austrian cousins Freud and Schnitzler? But recently their milieu has been stretching into a more experimental dabbling into the boundaries their art can push. If anything, one can call "Run Lola Run" a satisfactory entry into this fascinating German subculture from which sprang technopop and such acclaimed directors as Wolfgang Petersen and Werner Herzog.

"Run Lola Run" opens with a metaphor which would be considered cryptic if it were taken seriously: "The ball is round" and "The game lasts ninety-minutes" (well, actually only 81, but who's counting?) The gorgeous waif Franke Potente portrays the energetic Lola, a cross-blend of Japanese anime and post-modernist fashion whose frantic restlessness is called into action when her lover Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) runs into trouble when losing 100,000 DM to a subway loiterer. The camera follows Lola on three alternate realities, each dependent on how she chooses to evade the snarling dog at the corner of her apartment stairway. Whether she remains intimidated or barks back (which she literally does in one episode) determines the final fate of her ultimate destination.

Of course the plot is a loosely hinged clothesline on which to display Tykwer's breathtaking imagery. Manni owes this lost cash to a drug dealer, and it is up to Lola each and every time to bail out her boyfriend. But as long as the film seems to be breaking the cinematic narrative standard, my mind began to wander through other propositions: what would the situation be if Manni had not lost his cash, or if Lola had been able to meet the original transaction on time? All of these questions are basically fruitless, since the film's success is interdependent with the comic-book lyricism it aims for. Tykwer amalgamizes the super-heroine archetype so often found in the pages of graphic novels with a similar German stereotype emphasizing the paradoxical pseudo-masculinity of their women (indeed Potente possesses a sort of luminously chic warrior ethic which shines throughout her performance).

Indeed whereas most movies will only go so far, "Run Lola Run" relishes its own over-the-top nature. Pulsating techno-beats, the lively animation of its main character made explicit in the film's use of mixed media, and a gimmick for a plotline all point to this film's reflection of an emulation of the impatient visual style of American influences. Although this may not be a good sign for the artistic future of Germany's film industry, it certainly serves as a catalyst in comparison to the jaded assembly-line manufacturing of supposed American action movies. "Run Lola Run" is essentially exotic eye-candy with an almost disposable atmosphere, but it winks at the audience with unabandoned glee. As the film reached its third (and happiest) conclusion, I was again reminded of another Mike Myers project: "Wayne's World". That film made fun of the contrasting tendencies that separates some cinematic patrons from others: some are fans of ironic, existentialist resolutions; others like everything wrapped up in a neat little bow; and still others get a kick out of a nonsensical narrative break in action induced probably more by drug-induced hallucinations than true artistic merit. "Run Lola Run" has its cake and eats it too, and it expects its audience to do the same.

Pushing Tin (1999)

** (Out of four)

[9 October 1999]

Air-traffic controllers are probably one of the last candidates for cinematic enshrinement, but in Mike Newell's "Pushing Tin", these control-tower pencil-pushers finally get their due. Of course the movies have not foresworn the use of air-traffic control characters altogether: those of the movie-going public who fondly look back on Renny Harlin's action-packed "Die Hard 2" can remember the background scenery which periodically ganged up against Bruce Willis in his efforts to pop a cap in the finely-tuned proverbial asses of the elite corps using the airport operations against them. "Pushing Tin" tries to take a more realistic approach to the situation, portraying the chronic fatigue and dastardly human on-the-job interferences which even John McClane can't protect us against. It's a good idea (apparently inspired by a New York Times article), yet "Pushing Tin" has decidedly unoriginal things to say once its various protagonists leave the office.

John Cusack inhabits the high-strung, talkative liberal main character which has been his trademark performance since "The Sure Thing". Indeed he has a beautiful wife (Cate Blanchett) and a reputation for being the best and brightest of the tower, but hence it's not enough once the foreboding Billy Bob Thornton steps in. Thornton's character represents a challenge for Cusack, one that eventually relegates itself into Cusack's bed-hopping with his alcoholic loose-cannon of a wife (Angelina Jolie). Indeed, as in most movies of this calibre, such an action spells doom for Cusack's marriage, just another visible stumbling block in a comedy which applies its plot conflicts with a trowel.

Written by Glen and Les Charles (the creative forces between one of television's finest sitcoms "Cheers"), the film retains a meanderingly enjoyable tone its first hour before its mechanics set in. Indeed Cusack is a likable character, and the chemistry he exudes with his buddies seems to be genuine. But just like the inevitable sounds of a failing propellor, one begins to suspect the film's real intentions even while Jolie (a presence so dynamic she deserves more screen time than all the other characters put together) illuminates the screen.

The film builds up to its climax with--of all things-- a bomb at the airport. This is obviously where the "Die Hard" motif comes in, as I was half expecting good old Mr. Willis to burst through the door armed with a pair of tweezers and that "Sixth Sense" kid proclaiming the dead reception he prognosticates with this utter cardboard-cutout of a plot.

Mike Newell's career has been built into breathing fresh air into the most overdone of plots. His "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (though a tad overrated) used the standard romantic conception as a backdrop for Hugh Grant's bashful witticism. And his "Donnie Brasco" (one of the better recent Mafia movies) refused to simplify the guidelines of that specific genre by shaping it as a philosophic tragedy of conscience. How ironic it is, then, when he's unable to purvey the original concept of "Pushing Tin" above anything other than a standard sitcom. Of course this is understandable due to its screenwriters' backgrounds, but in the end excuses do not make up for shallowness. There's a certain preposterous ethic when making a movie about normal characters "Pushing Tin" claims to be about that requires a multitude of spice in order to render the material more palatable to Hollywood. Unfortunately, I would have virtually no problem with simply holding up a mirror to regular characters: I've always sympathized more with the disheveled guy on the sidewalk bench than any phony movie-star confection. Unfortunately, the fundamental problem with "Pushing Tin" is that it goes out on a limb looking for the extraordinary when the ordinary would have done just fine.

Three Kings (1999)

*** (Out of four)

[8 October 1999]

I wish I could recommend "Three Kings" more highly than I finally am, for that three-star rating does not give the film enough justice in recommending its propulsive drive and unique visual scheme. However, it seemed to me that director David O. Russell, who has previously directed a movie on incestuous relationships ("Spanking the Monkey") and a wild romp about a New York Jew romping across the country with his incompetently sultry psychologist, his nursing wife and a couple of gay police officers in the search for his parents ("Flirting with Disaster") would at least be able to milk the standard war-movie dry of all cliches with this incantation. And while a lot of it exudes the mind-blowing cinematic fascination which any movie-lover is sure to appreciate, it has some trouble reconciling the more serious elements of its plot with its own fast-paced recklessness.

George Clooney (a man who I always thought had movie-star potential, regardless of what the critics say) stars here as Archie Gates, the macho group leader of a 1991 Desert Storm platoon with multitudes of testosterone and few Iraqis to use it on. Utilizing the old saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" to the point of action, Gates takes three of his troops (Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze) to a destination where stolen Kuwaiti bullion awaits them. The Clooney character claims that a handful of such riches would be able to buy them happiness, and the story cuts to Wahlberg's wife and child back home and Cube's airport luggage job as a clue to how desperate these characters are.

Of course as many other war movies have told us before (albeit not in nearly as interesting a style as "Three Kings"), such a venture will prove disastrous to our protagonists. Already subjected to pulling a map out of a prisoner's posterior, the soldiers encounter a group of Iraqis whose culture proves not as barbarian as the many CNN reports inclined one to believe, as these people seem to be in the midst of a vast Western influence with boxes of stolen cellular phones and stereo systems blaring out mindless Eddie Murphy tunes of yesteryear (at one point Wahlberg's character proclaims this as "bad music" and indeed I was expecting his very own "Good Vibration" to be played for an additional ironic effect).

Inevitably the film leads to Clooney leading a group of Iraqi refugees through the desert in the Iranian borde; these scenes seem like a jarring shift of tone from the anarchic style of the film's first hour, as Clooney and the main Iraqi engage in pseudo-philosophical conversations while the rest of the cast statically stands around in circles feigning interest at the faux-wisdom of the main character's words.

And yet Russell's caustic wit comes rushing back for an utterly enjoyable, if predictable, finale which culminates in the use of a long gone Peter Cetera ballad for one of the finer uses of irony exhibited this year on celluloid. (The movie revels in portraying the distinction of the more urbane early-90s mood with its schmaltzier-in-comparison 80s counterpart.) While the film's final five minutes exhibit a "seen-that-before" kind of nobility which nary a war film has failed to employ, one can find a plethora of things to appreciate in "Three Kings".

Although David O. Russell's script finally succumbs to the very pretensions its own theme is trying to send up, at its best it is an acidic piece of writing. It is backed up by Newton Thomas Sigel's innovative cinematography, which features glorious strips of celluloid illustrating the glamorous cinematic dessert deserts have always provided, from the super-wide lensing of "Lawrence of Arabia" to the creamy mounds of sand in "The English Patient". Add a career-best performance by Wahlberg, surprisingly effective as the character with the most heart, and one could proclaim "Three Kings" as a highly effective movie.

Yet its very intentions of eliciting emotion from its audience cannot succeed with the style the film is presented in. Indeed the two halves of the film do not mesh well, and perhaps that is why so many people are labeling this movie as "weird". Many critics are comparing this film to Coppola's "Apocalypse Now": of course these claims are unfounded. "Apocalypse" operated as an entirely cerebral movie apart from the conventions of any particular genre; at times "Three Kings" shows the strain of its action-movie roots. Indeed I wish that the movie would have had the ambition of its journalist character (Nora Dunn). She shows integrity and gumption even at the most inopportune of times. One could only realize what a pioneering work "Three Kings" could have been if it would have stuck to this mentality.

Swept Away (1974)

**** (Out of four)

[8 October 1999]

Oh, damn all those pretentious artistic Italian film projects of twenty-five years ago! They possess a certain freedom of dialogue which was altogether lacking in American film then and still is undeniably lacking in even the best-written States projects. Here is a very interesting little film from female director Lina Wertmueller...a film of clashing passions, yes, but also a very beautiful film with an ironic foothold on its material on one end and a dervishly melancholic view on the other.

Simply put, this film is about the hunger developed between two Italians of differing social castes. One is a bearded Communist with a serenly blue pair of eyes (Giancarlo Giannini), and the other is a spoiled, slender blonde made rich through methods of capitalism (Mariangelo Melato). Of course at first they can't stand each other, but as time goes by, the Communist lies hold of the woman (both figuratively and physically) and practically forces himself upon her.

The film reminded me of Jonathan Demme's equally overlooked "Something Wild" in the two vastly different tones of its sections which seamlessly fit together at the end. The first half of the movie portrays life aboard a yacht as the capitalist woman and her husband sun bathe on deck while those who prescribe to socialist practices do the manual labor underneath. This part of the film is as bright and witty as any I've seen, not lacking the slightest inhibition at using such words as "proletariat" and commenting on the various evils of capitalism that would scare off many an American producer when faced with a similar project.

However the dynamics of the story are soon set in place, as man and woman are placed out at sea, amidst the sparkling incandescence of the water as captured by Giulio Battiferri, Guiseppe Fornari and Stefano Ricciotte's gorgeous cinematography. Eventually they find themselves on a deserted island, where the man turns the woman's capitalism against her by making her wash his underpants for food. Later the man pushes the woman past her economic facade into a primal state of sexual ecstasy interspersed with the man's vicious slappings equating himself as the "master" over the woman. Such a film leads to its inevitable conclusion, and one finds oneself exhausted at the allegorical nature of the situation.

Although I don't look at "Swept Away" with any sort of agreement on its sympathetic view of the Communist proletariat, I find its symbolic interpretations fascinating. Indeed the movie gives capitalism the slinky, seductive form of Woman, and equates the marketplace as whorishness of the worst kind. On the other hand, the film portrays Communism as some sort of untamed beast irresistable in its muscular masculinity. As the film ends one is reminded that two different perspectives can hardly live together, but at one time they were able to coexist. Of course those sympathetic to the Communist cause have less to worry about now then they did in 1975 when "Swept Away" was released, but nevertheless it remains a mesmerizing find essaying the ideals of such a state of mind.

American Beauty (1999)

*** 1/2 (Out of four)

[4 October 1999]

Sam Mendes' "American Beauty" is one of the most sumptuously saddening looks at suburban decay ever made. Although for my money it lacks the even-handed emotional resonance of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm", "American Beauty" one-ups the previous film by trading the irreplaceably funny Oscar winner Kevin Kline for yet another irreplaceably funny Oscar winner by the name of Kevin, Mr. Spacey. Of course many Americans have seen Spacey chew the scenery in such dynamically lively roles as "The Usual Suspects", "Seven", "A Time to Kill" and "L.A. Confidential" without ever being able to identify him by name. "American Beauty" should remedy that situation right away.

Spacey plays put-upon advertising executive Lester Burnham, a man with a penchant for masturbating in the shower, "masking his contempt for the a****les in charge" at the office and sitting spinelessly at the supper table listening to the insomnia-curing dementia of Tin Pan Alley tunes preferred by his rigid realtor wife Carolyn (Annette Bening). Indeed he no longer communicates with his daughter Jane(Thora Birch), a rebellious young cheerleader playing a nondescript game of follow-the-leader with her model-wannabe colleague Angela (Mena Suvari). Of course Angela awakens Lester out of the apathetic hellhole he had been entrenched in before, and with the help of his new teen-age next-door neighbor Ricky (Wes Bentley), Lester tries to overcome his encroaching middle age through a cycle of working out, smoking pot and fantasizing of Angela in a heap of rose petals.

Ricky's life indeed is no picnic, as he tries to escape the demented militance of his ex-Marine father (Chris Cooper) through a gallery of videotapes which include everything from a dead bird to a plastic bag blowing gently in the breeze. Although labeled as an outcast at school, young Jane looks past the superficial ramblings of her "experienced" best friend and proceeds to look beyond Ricky's initial facade.

As framed by cinematographer Conrad L. Hall ("In Cold Blood"), "American Beauty" has the same falsely bright, almost dizzyingly surreal colors which have defined such similar films as "Blue Velvet" and "The Truman Show". Unlike those two films, however, "Beauty" doesn't try to evade its material through metaphor or Lynchian vision; instead, it stares unblinkingly into the lives of a group of people, each with their own little hang-ups. Indeed what forty-year old man wouldn't identify with Lester as he flips the finger to his malcontent superiors and shrugs off all responsibility in returning to that haven of simplicity, the fast-food chain? And who wouldn't admire the sheer combination of bravado and insight Ricky contains as he provides his inspiration for Lester? These identifiable characters form the core of Sam Mendes' debut film, an exquisite find which at times manages to expose an inherently mechanical processing behind its plotting through unbelievable shifts in logic. One scene in particular essays this (READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!): Ricky's father sees what he believes is his son performing oral sex on Lester when in reality all he's doing is supplying him with pot. This is a low point of Alan Ball's screenplay, which sketches this character almost to the point of stereotype (were it not for Cooper's masterly performance, one would be inclined to write this mistake off as bigger than it is).

Yet this is one of the few flaws which periodically punctuate Alan Ball's biting screenplay. Although millions of Americans live in the suburbs even now, very few have the courage to admit their own narcolepsy resulting from such deceptive terms as "comfort". By the end of "American Beauty", Spacey's character begins to merit a sort of predestined glory which makes his inevitable destiny seem both heartbreaking and, finally,life-affirming.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

** 1/2 (Out of four)

[19 September 1999]

Foreign directors tend to create films with disturbing subject matter. Czech auteur Milos Forman is no exception. His films have taken on issues of freedom underneath even the vilest of expressions, whether they be pornography or mental wards. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is set in the latter, and its tale of a recently-indoctrinated inmate who inspires the other "lunatics" is noble. Yet great art is not always determined by courageous ambitions. Ironically Forman, unlike most of his foreign colleagues, has a Hollywood touch which proves condescending to his material yet rewards him when the Oscars come calling. "Cuckoo's Nest" is a prime example of Oscar-bait, assuming a certain knowledge on the human condition yet remaining hollow in the center.

Jack Nicholson plays Randall P. McMurphy, mental inmate extraordinaire, able to get withdrawn Indians speaking and stuttering momma's-boys laid. As the movie begins, McMurphy enters the domain of Nurse Ratchet (Louise Fletcher), a blue-eyed orderly with a heart of stone. Soon enough, he's able to bond with his fellow inmates (including promising up-and-comers Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd and Forman regular Vincent Schiavelli) through evening poker runs, basketball games, fishing trips and drunken defiances of authority. Indeed, the man's so inspiring that it's a wonder Robin Williams didn't snag this movie for his own.

And therein lies the problem. McMurphy, it is clear from the outset, is not even a character. He's a symbol, enacting Bugs Bunny-esque guard smooching and still possessing his abilities to score women despite his current mental condition. This is no accident, because Forman and his screenwriters make an effort to set McMurphy apart from the ragtag group of nutjobs by contrasting their white uniforms with his snow cap and blue jacket. This plunges the heart out of Ken Kesey's original novel, which illustrated the bond between McMurphy and the other characters. Jack Nicholson, however, plays him as if he were a religious artifact, smirking all the while like he knows he's a pedestal above each and everyone else in the sanity department. The subtlety of character emotions exerted in real-life is altogether lacking in many scenes, such as McMurphy's over-the-top rendition of watching the World Series. Indeed Nicholson seems here to be pleading for the Academy Award from his acting peers (which he ultimately, and predictably, won) which was only understandable after years of Roger Corman trash-pics and four Oscar nominations with absolutely nothing to show for it. His performance here was the first of many where he decreasingly lost touch with the subtleties of his profession and decided to go for comedic, crowd-pleasing broke simply by playing off his own stereotype.

If there is one performance to note here, it belongs to Louise Fletcher. Cold, calculating, but always protruding her frigid qualities with nothing more than a stare, Fletcher's portrayal of Nurse Ratchet earns its spot on the cinematic hall of fame.

Yet in the end it's not enough. Not even Haskell Wexler's tight, expert cinematography and intriguingly funny bits of dialogue (as the movie went on I kept wondering why males don't use the euphemism "beaver" anymore) can save Forman's film. Of course one can easily deduce a pattern from the Czech helmer's career. From "Hair" to "Amadeus" (still his best film) to "The People vs. Larry Flynt", Forman has had no trouble plunging into the depths of certain issues which repress humanity. Unfortunately, however, one can never reach the full effect of triumph of the will when one's story is supported by a cartoon.

Amadeus (1984)

*** 1/2 (Out of four)

[10/10 · 18 September 1999]

There's a certain structure in Milos Forman's "Amadeus" which is bewitching in allegory, even if it proves somewhat shaky in execution. Based on Peter Shaffer's play, "Amadeus" illustrates in flashback through narrator Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) the contradictive genius behind child prodigy Mozart (Tom Hulce), a man with a gift for musical symphony underlying a childish, though unintentional facade. Caught in a tug-of-war between 18th-century censorship techniques of the Viennese court of Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones) and his own regrettable appreciation of Mozart's revolutionary genius, Salieri embarks upon a subplot which occasionally results in him being lost in his own autobiography. This flaw would be more glaring if it weren't for a magnificent performance by Abraham as a man slighted by divinity.

The movie begins with Salieri's confession to a priest in a hospital following his suicide attempt. After claiming to have "killed Mozart", Salieri proceeds to explain his motivations. These originated with Salieri's childhood dream of becoming a "musical instrument" for God, only to be taunted by the Almighty through Mozart's melodious compositions. Aghast at the aspect, Salieri forsakes Him and proceeds to plan his own bitter destruction of the "beloved of God".

Even if the film were nothing more than a costume epic, it would still be a marvel to watch. Women in busts barely concealing their cleavage and men whose masculinity protrude through even the most rigid of wear personify the lust still inherent beneath all those layers of decoration. Patrizia von Brandenburg's set designs are nothing short of immaculate with their lavish plethora of details.

The film's goal to balance Salieri's jealousy with Mozart's musical martyrdom seems at times implausible. If the story is seen through Salieri's eyes, how can it intrude upon Mozart's married life? Indeed, during the film's central act, Salieri tends to disappear for long stretches at a time.

Nevertheless, one could make the argument that it is necessary to detail both lives in order to show the turmoil between conservative aristocracy and Mozart's vastly underappreciated compositions. Of course, like Forman's "The People vs. Larry Flynt", the film makes inevitable comparisons to the modern-day debate of expression, including the emperor's traditional beliefs that there are "too many notes!" in Mozart's work. This sort of modernized, countercultural philosophy is presented not only in Mozart's uninhibitedness, but also in various other elements: the unapproving father, the conservative establishment and the eventual degradation of classics into more accessible media, such as the vaudevillian treatment "Don Giovanni" receives. Indeed Salieri, through the amazingly subtle actions of Abraham, sees the future and "speaks for all mediocrity" in condemning those whose extraordinary talents put others who are merely ordinary to shame. This is an instinctual part of human nature: from schoolboy to occupationist, from 18th-century Austria to 20th-century America, there will always be those envious of one's superior talent. But Forman and Abraham dramatize just how hard it is to pass the torch to potential scene-stealers. While Mozart's music may lift us to otherworldly elevations, Salieri's story entrenches us into our own humanity.

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

**** (out of four)

[9 September 1999]

There's a certain freedom in George Miller's "Babe: Pig in the City" which is unlike many another movie aiming for that same one-word plateau. This freedom is all the more surprising when one considers that this is the follow-up to one of the most beloved children's movies of recent times, 1995's "Babe". Indeed the term "sequel" usually implies a continuation, but those jaded upper-crust Hollywood producers, and some unimaginative members of the bourgeoisie, also seem to think it means a rehash. This may explain why "Lethal Weapon 4" outperformed "Babe 2" nearly seven times over at the box-office. Nevertheless one year later Chris Rock's raspy one-liners hold no bearing in my memory while a simple shot of an orangutan holding a fishbowl seems to be permanently branded within the depths of my brain. That is the price money can never buy.

"Babe: Pig in the City" is indeed a continuation of the odyssies of the lovable porker from the Oscar-nominated original. But like so many great movies, it's much more than that. Babe (voiced by E.G. Daily, taking over dubbing duties from the original's Christine Cavanaugh) finds himself in a rut when Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) injures himself and the farm chores are pinned on his wife (Magda Szubanski). To pay off the inevitable foreclosure on the estate, Mrs. Hoggett and Babe attempt to fly to a press junket where the pig's appearance would bring an end to their financial problems, but problems arise when the good wife is falsely identified as a drug runner by a canine narc (characterized as an addled stool pigeon a la Henry Hill in "Goodfellas"). After the mistake is cleared up, Mrs. Hoggett and Babe are given shelter by an eccentric hotel-owner who runs a private establishment for all kinds of animals, a fact which sits none-too-well with the conservative classical-music aficionados next door.

Providing the backdrog in Babe's journey is Miller's spectacular realization of his setting, captured in exquisite production design and visual effects. This isn't just a city, it's The City, a breathless amalgam of famous landmarks (including the Statue of Liberty and Big Ben) and darkened alleys, of shady characters and public apathy. The atmosphere alotted to this metropolis cuts close to the mythological underpinnings of a city's existence, a point Miller and fellow screenwriters Judy Morris and Mark Lamprell ingeniously introduce with their assortment of metropolitan archetypes in animal form: washed-out prostitutes (the poodle), street-smart con men (the chimpanzees), reformed killers (the pitbull), determined invalids (the beagle, who inevitably reminded me of Ronald "Where's the rest of me?" Reagan in "King's Row"), orphans (the homeless dogs and cats which seemed like a ragtag group of furry Dead End Kids) and misunderstood loners (the aforementioned orangutan).

Indeed, though, the most courageous subtext of "Babe: Pig in the City" is in the sophisticated dialogue, a rarity not only in children's films but in all films. The animals don't sing comforting lullabies unlike the cutesy Disney characterizations of the past years nor do they speak in condescendingly childish lingo like similar characters in the movie "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey" from a few years back. Indeed even the Doberman Pinscher sounds as if he's read Whitman. There's a breathtaking moment where Babe, being chased across the many avenues of the city, turns around and directs a simple question to his attacker: "Why?" Compare that to Disney's "A Bug's Life", obviously a technically amazing film but operating far below "Babe 2" in the intellectual department. That film ends with the inevitable fight where the villain dies and everything remains "happily ever after". In "Babe: Pig in the City" the only villain is the loss of childlike innocence, and the film ends subtly with the realization that our adorable hero's naivete has been tested and preserved. There's a lesson all those Hollywood sequel-mongers should take to heart.

Go (1999)

*** (Out of four)

[25 August 1999]

If ever there were a by-the-book Tarantino clone, Doug Liman's "Go" would be it. Wonderfully derivative yet nonetheless frighteningly original for a teen comedy, "Go" is the type of film one watches with many qualms, almost willing to forgive it for its many so-called "homages" in its attempts to be a kiddie-"Pulp Fiction" with its unique situations and characters. Yet in transplanting a triptychal neo-film noir to the world of teens, Liman sacrifices one thing that "Pulp Fiction" had in abundance: heart. Yes, the film essays the exploits of many youngsters getting into dilemmas way over their heads, but it is done in such a manner that no matter how dangerous these experiences are, there must always be a pulsating, stylistic pace to it.

And yet "Go" has the makings of being a great film. John August's screenplay has some bizarre inventions in it, many reminiscent of the aforementioned video clerk's masterpiece. Like "Pulp Fiction", the film is spliced together from three interconnecting vignettes which, if not thought out with as much detail as "Pulp", at least maintains one's full interest throughout. The first episode traces the misadventures of Ronna ("The Sweet Hereafter"'s Sarah Polley), a check-out girl with an eviction notice hanging over her head. (At one point she mentions that she's only seventeen. The film never makes it clear why this "underage" girl lives apart from her parents or legal guardians, but never mind.) Substituting for an irresponsible British guy named Simon (Desmond Askew) with an apparent part-time drug courier occupation, Ronna is asked by gay soap stars Adam and Zack (Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr) to supply twenty hits of Ecstasy for a supposed party. What Ronna doesn't know is that she's being set up.

The second vignette centers on Simon himself, off to Vegas with three buddies. His adventure involves a tryst with two maids of honor at a wedding chapel, an ill-fated lap dance and a wounded bouncer who seems to be after him and his buddies not for his own sake but for his father's (J.E. Freeman, in a wicked comic turn).

The third section follows the two soap studs and the police officer they're working with (William Fichtner), leading up to the film's funniest scene, where Adam and Zack seem to be in the midst of a swinger operation set up by the cop and his wife ("Ally McBeal"'s Jane Krakowski) only to find out that their "ulterior motive" is equally out-of-left-field.

"Go" of course benefits from these bizarre twists, and it doesn't hurt that Liman's cinematography is lively and energetic. But it suffers from a case of self-awareness. It knows how smart it is, rather than being surprised at the effectiveness of its own material. Certain touches are amusing, such as Ronna's perpetually stoned co-worker having a telepathic conversation with a cat, and others are just a case of a cinematic equivalent of showing off, such as that same kid's macarena with a cashier. Indeed while watching "Go", not only was I reminded of "Pulp Fiction", I was also reminiscing on Alan Parker's musical "Bugsy Malone", a Mafia film in which all the major players were children. "Go" doesn't cast its actors that young, but in making a teen flick featuring the comedic use of drugs, it sends a dangerous message, and many of the actors are not yet mature enough to convey this message. What many of these Tarantino clones don't realize is that "Pulp Fiction" was a tragedy masked in the clothing of pulp comic books. "Go" seems to be a comedy masked in a tragedy masked in Tarantino lore.

Something Wild (1986)

**** (Out of four)

[10/10 · 23 August 1999]

Jeff Daniels has been the type of actor whose films are always shown on "The Late Late Movie". His career has been built as playing the normal guy in increasingly odder movies. He's taken on the B-movie genre ("Arachnophobia"), trippy cult sci-fi ("Disaster in Time"), nostalgia-fueled Woody Allen comedies ("The Purple Rose of Cairo"), and even the occasional abominable romance ("Love Stinks", "The Butcher's Wife"). And then there's "Something Wild", a film which defies any possible classification. It's a love story, a road movie, a thriller, a comedy of errors, an 80's movie and most of all, it's a Jonathan Demme movie.

Made in 1986, the film has a logical kind of pre-thinking which is both subtle and amazing. Daniels plays Charlie Driggs, an uptight New York City businessman whose life goes into overdrive when he meets "Lulu" (Melanie Griffith), a wacky free spirit with a pair of handcuffs, a bottle of Scotch and a sexuality which seems to be inspired not by the Madonna-esque charades of the time but on past screen legends as Louise Brooks and Mae West. After meeting in a corner restaurant where it seems all of the customers have their own interesting stories to tell, Demme and screenwriter E. Max Frye focus on these two people and the various destinies their meeting awaits, the least of which involves Lulu's ex-husband (Ray Liotta), fresh out of prison and demanding an explanation for Lulu's fading love for him.

Of course I'm making this film seem like another one of those standard Hollywood claptraps. Yet it's not. Together with regular cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, Demme plunges us into a world which seems at first like a homespun portrait of Americana, complete with minor characters who seem to have life beyond the screen (the Motel Philosopher; John Waters' crooked car salesman; Charlie's protege and his very pregnant, very introverted wife; Lulu's unexpectedly wise mother). Later, however, the film uses its keen sense of characterization to subtly show the effects of the various kindnesses of strangers (the gas-station attendant, the little girl outside the church, a naive teen named Tracy). All of this is done in a style that is both unique and mesmerizing, as Demme keeps shifting the gears of his story so the audience doesn't know what will happen next.

And then there's the Liotta character. This is one of the great supporting performances of contemporary cinema, as Liotta's presence lets another dimension of atmosphere pervade its way through this already quirky film,lifting it beyond the ranks into greatness. Displaying a level of intelligence which is both dangerous and striking, Liotta conjures up a performance which he would later reprise in Jonathan Kaplan's inferior "Unlawful Entry", a film which, unfortunately, did considerably better at the box office than this one. Nevertheless, Liotta proves exactly what Scorsese saw in him when he was casting "Goodfellas": his smarmy underhandedness and sneaky intrusions would prove similar to those he would display playing Henry Hill in that Mafia masterpiece.

Another one of "Something Wild"'s many strengths is its soundtrack. The film contains many of what I have described as "30-second rock interludes", but in this case, it's done with so much style and cinematic know-how that it does not take away from the story. Instead, Demme uses the stereotype that many of his MTV-obsessed colleagues employed and turns it on its head. Instead of using music for music's sake, Demme uses an eclectic mix of reggae (Sister Carol, Jimmy Cliff, UB40), oldies (many performed by the Feelies during the reunion sequence), and Laurie Anderson and John Cale's solo guitar riff and blends the sound to the images so it looks as if the film is being told by a pseudo-Greek chorus of African-American subculture which stands apart from this story of libidos and materialism run awry.

This film is shown on Comedy Central many, many times. However, it has been severely edited due to commercial restraints and is also shown during the wrong time of day. This is a midnight movie, a film which is meant to be discovered while flipping the dials on your television set during restless bouts of insomnia. Like "Blade Runner" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", this cult movie feeds upon a nocturnal atmosphere and is as a result all the more effective. I haven't even mentioned Griffith's performance, which is her best, even better than "Working Girl". Her squeaky voice and demeanor hints at oceans of emotion behind this problematic woman, and you find yourself caring for this mismatched couple even as Liotta terrorizes the screen. "Friends?" Liotta asks Daniels, manipulating his thoughts so easily that Daniels hardly knows what to say or what to do. The audience sits spellbound, experiencing the same degree of uncertainty over this eccentrically exquisite movie.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

*** (Out of four)

[10 August 1999]

British former commercial auteur Guy Ritchie makes his critically-acclaimed film debut with this intriguing foreigner from the British Isles. "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" is like a British-themed homage to the many Tarantino-inspired knock-offs done in a style reminiscent of the avant-garde bands PBS used to show on Saturday evenings nearly ten years ago. Bizarrely wrapping its wraparound plot in this theme proves to add to the meticulously construed charm of elated supposed Britannian one-upmanship of the genre. The self-confidence shows in many of the film's more bizarrely shot (and somewhat overexposed) freeze-frames (most definitely the card game sequence in which one of our heroes loses a rigged poker run with a take-no-prisoners P.H. Moriarty). Terrifically essaying the very diction of Tarantino cloning through this veil of British influence turns out to be director Guy Ritchie's greatest asset.

"Lock" is set primarily in a criminally arresting and somewhat grungily Nirvanian London, a place which looks almost clockwork in everpresent style. Bright red letters almost advertising the excessive seed in each district with their very simpleness ("Harry's Sex Club"), whirling advertisements of "Minicabs" and the almost libertine freedom of motion from Tim Maurice-Jones all help to create a flicker of "never-seen-that-before!" amazement pervading this environment. Inside this desmenes lie four "mates", one a cardsharp (Nick Moran), another a future entrepreneur (Tom Flemyng), a third named Bacon (Jason Strathem) and the fourth called "Soap" because unlike his three mates, he likes to keep his fingers clean by dabbling into a legitimate occupation, baking (Dexter Fletcher). Their initial efforts to get into a poker game with the infamous Hatchet Harry (Moriarty) end up in an enormous 500,000 pound debt to be vanquished within seven days--or else. As the Clash once said, "one thing leads to another", and soon enough the entire struggle leads to, of all things, the relentless exploits of a pair of "smoking barrels".

Of course the ironic twists are one pleasure of the movie, but ironic twists does not equal charm, and this is the one of the things which "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" cannot equate with not only with its great-uncle "Pulp Fiction", but also its great-great grandparents which all contributed to Tarantino's film's fascinating pop-culture lore. One strength of the movie is its ability to juggle its various plotlines skillfully and still have time for a "30 second rock interlude" during its 108-minute running time. Indeed many of the characters elicit sympathy. One in particular is the moral thug Big Chris (Vinnie Jones) who takes his son on collecting missions and bashes his victims for swearing. These characters almost have a Dickensian feel to them in their grappling bond and ultimate fate. Hatchet Harry's back-up Barry the Baptist (Lenny McLean) reminds one of a cross between Clemenza and Don Rickles in his dogged, gleeful determination of collecting. And yet ultimately this film's sly, energetically automated sense of humor ultimately impairs one from sharing the same memories of the film's heroes, who all are so remarkably similar that they're sometimes hard to tell apart. Truly Ritchie's film is an unusual creation, and it deserves to be seen because of its out-of-left-field approach to the recent hip, Tarantino phase of filmmaking, but by strutting around the course when he should have been golfing for the hole, he prevents his film from breaking the cult masses like "Pulp Fiction" did and instead is seen as "that egocentrically stylistic British entry into film reinvigoration". Hey, even Winston Churcill was inspired by someone.

The Truman Show (1998)

**** (Out of four)

[10/10 · 7 May 1999]

Some general comments about the grave injustice of this film being robbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would obviously be unnecessary due to the high amounts of people demanding an explanation for the inexplicable lack of a Best Picture Oscar nomination for this film. So let me just go about in praising this film: "The Truman Show" was definitely the best movie of 1998 and one of the five best of the decade, behind "Pulp Fiction", "Goodfellas", "Schindler's List" and "Forrest Gump". What struck me about the film is just how meticulous everything was. Andrew Niccol and Peter Weir really thought everything out to its fullest dimension! It took me two viewings to appreciate this film's greatness, but the scene that will always strike me is just how carefully orchestrated Truman's moonlight stroll by the beach with Lauren/Sylvia is used to elicit an emotional reaction. Chopin's "Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor" has never sounded so melancholy and beautiful as this wonderful scene, and the breathtaking imagery and careful build-up to Truman's makeshift assemblage of her face is one of the most impressive and subtle plot developments I have EVER seen. Weir does not bang us over the head with this film, unlike some films that were inexplicably crowned with the sheath of greatness (namely "The People vs. Larry Flynt" or "Saving Private Ryan"...a well-made film, no doubt, but not the greatest war film ever made). Whoever claims that this film could have been more missed the point of subtlety that this film was trying to get across...what did you want, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis suddenly appearing on the screen to deliver some Oliver Stone-style message on violence or the JFK conspiracy? The film's climax is one of the most surreal and strangely moving pieces of cinema I have EVER seen, and just the way Carrey enunciates a pained "Was nothing real?" to Ed Harris was worth an Oscar nomination alone. Give me Carrey's nuanced performance over the contortions and muggings of Benigni anyday, a trait he must have inherited from...Carrey himself! Oh well, to give this film the recognition it deserves would be to misrepresent the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a sincere, incisive group of people instead of the smug and sanctimonious group of bootlickers they truly are.

Forrest Gump (1994)

**** (Out of four)

[10/10 · 7 May 1999]

People, this is a great film. And, if you want to get picky about it, it's the only big blockbuster to make it onto the IMDB Top 250 in the past ten years, with the exception of "Terminator 2". That just goes to show that it is not "hype over content". Many people were turned off by the idea of a stupid person as the all-encompassing Everyman, but these were the same people who left the movie theater dry-eyed and continued on their very way, looking for advice from Madison Avenue, dumping their oh-so-liberal views on whoever would be genial enough to listen, and oh yes, condescendingly talking down to the local village idiot and then making fun of him behind his back. Believe me, I have known people in my time described as "village idiots", and the personality with which Tom Hanks imbues Gump's character is dead-on accurate. The film touched me in so many ways that my throat still lumps up every time the feather ascends to the sky with Alan Silvestri's BEAUTIFUL music playing in the background. Zemeckis should be proud of himself for this one, which I think will go down as his masterpiece (and that's saying something from the man who made "Back to the Future" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"). Forrest Gump may have been slow, but he was anything but a simpleton...those who denounce people like him and their naive worldview just envy the fact that their lives are built around a shimmering ideal brighter than all of the sexcapades and trivial pettiness of normality. Oh yes, and for the person who commented on this film as "The worst Best Picture Oscar winner of the 90s"...obviously you haven't seen "Shakespeare in Love".

Pulp Fiction (1994)

**** (Out of four)

[10/10 · 6 May 1999]

This is filmmaking at its apex. Though I would hardly argue that this film is the greatest, which is what many IMDB users relate after they've just seen a movie they really like and then forget about once the next "Titanic" or "Matrix" hype machine bursts their way, I must say that "Pulp Fiction" added more to the cinematic lexicon more than any other film of the 90s. And who can argue with that? Indeed it is one of my favorites just for its adamant refusal to do things by-the-book, and many previous comments essay this film as a highly moral and spiritual piece--they couldn't be more right. When the film came out, a lot of the reviewers commented on its cinematic brand of hipness...Being hip is cool, but I wouldn't necessarily equate that with great movies--just look at "Men in Black", which was sorta fun but hardly the endurable piece of cinema that "Pulp Fiction" has become. So what sets it apart from the rest of the crowd? It's exactly this spirituality...watching the film, I remember being shocked and enlightened at the same time, being unbearably tensed up and utterly charmed and in agreement with this weird California former video clerk's world view. The film is a tour-de-force of the cinematic style; one of my favorite shots in the film seems to be a homage to both the fast-paced unbreaking style of Scorsese's "Goodfellas" and Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby". It is the scene where Travolta crashes his Malibu into Eric Stoltz's front yard and brings the OD'ed Thurman inside his house. As Rosanna Arquette hurls invectives at the two, the camera (wonderful work by Andrez Sekula moves back and forth between Arquette and Travolta and Stoltz lurching over Thurman (that's the Scorsese part). Then, as Stoltz goes looking for the plunger, the camera follows him into a room, where it inexplicably stops at the doorway so as to impede a full sight of Stoltz, reminders of the scene where Polanski photographed Ruth Gordon in "Rosemary's Baby" by placing an obstruction between her and the camera so the audience would instinctively lurch their head to the side, making a hopeless attempt to see around the obstruction. Such a phrase can be used to describe "Pulp Fiction": most movies simply unfurl their stories at the audience. This movie subliminally makes you a part of the action. I recently had a semi-argument with a friend over the worth of this film over "Natural Born Killers". Now don't get me wrong, Oliver Stone is a powerful filmmaker, but his film banged you over the head incessantly with points like "I'm Going to Use my Artistic License to Satirize the Over-the-Top Violence of Popular Culture by Making a Movie Replete With...Over-the-Top Violence!" In the style of David Spade, "It's called hypocrisy, Oliver--check into it!" Anyways, I digress. Anybody who bad-mouths this movie indeed has no appreciation for cinema; sure, the film may have a goof or an errant philosophy somewhere , but Tarantino fulfilled any filmmaker's dream in revitalizing cinema. You can say that the film's tone didn't impress you, that its style wasn't to your taste...but you can't deny the artistry that went into it. Morality? For all of those who believe this film is an amoral travesty, I suggest you rent the family favorite "The Santa Clause" and count how many times Disney shamelessly milks its own products, or if God is mentioned even once in what is supposed to be a Christmas film. Or in ANY family film. What impressed me the most when I first saw "Pulp Fiction" was its inclusion of God at all, many Generation-X filmmakers (paging Kevin Smith?) are so agnostic in their beliefs that it was so refreshing to see one that painted divinity in such a positive light. You can have those other indie favorites "Chasing Amy" and "Good Will Hunting"(both starring those irritating crybabies Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), and if you like those cynical films which are basically reworkings of "oh-feel-sorry-for-me" melodramas of the late-40s reworked with equally irritating alternative rock (best summed up by the Smashing Pumpkins in a "Simpsons" episode: "All's we got is our millions of dollars, our legions of fans, and our youth."), then you can have them. Compare that to Jules' awakening ("I was just sitting here eating my muffin and drinking my coffee when I had what alcoholics refer to as 'a moment of clarity'.") and you'll see how Tarantino turned the mythic Gen-X stereotype on its head as well. "Pulp Fiction" is, in my opinion, the king of the indies and one of the best examples of cinematic craftsmanship ever.

Blade Runner (1982)

**** (Out of four)

[10/10 · 5 May 1999]

A pivotal movie in my many years of cinematic fascination, I had only seen "Blade Runner" for the first time in October, 1998, which meant that I had seen various films inspired from it, such as Luc Besson's "The Fifth Element" and even Tim Burton's two "Batman"'s before I got the chance to lose myself in the elaborately constructed Los Angeles of this film. Of course I have subjected myself to both versions, and of course the Director's Cut is better, but still this is beside the point. For a film made seventeen years ago and culminating with the kind of visceral fascination and kinetic cinemania that this one inspires is almost unheard of. We could get into arguments about the relative outdatedness of even the most classic of films (even those nifty hippie-inspired stewardess wardrobes in Kubrick's "2001" look hopelessly tacky today); "Blade Runner" however, still holds its own. A beautiful piece of cinema, everything in this film comes together like clockwork. Jordan Croenworth's cinematography, Douglas Trumbull's special effects, the performances of Harrison Ford (who showed his relative worth as an actor first in this film, not Peter Weir's "Witness"), Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah and Sean Young at her most soulful, and most notably, Ridley Scott's meticulous direction make this one of the great films. How could I forget Vangelis's score? Who could dispute the evocative dreaminess of the scene where Young lets her hair down at the piano as Vangelis's electronic palette of eerily beautiful melancholia reaches its crescendo? Or the bluesy overtones of the scene where Ford analyzes a photograph and cries of childhood are subliminally heard in the background? Or in one of the most poignant sequences in cinematic history, at the end on the rooftop, the perfect combination of music, imagery and dialogue. Don't get me wrong, I believe "2001" to be a film of enormous versimilitude; it is quite possibly the greatest sci-fi of all time (it is certainly the most ambitious); "Blade Runner" though creating a world with as much ingenuity and pizazz as ever before seen in cinema, is a much more subtle work and offers an opposing side as to the haunting effect of cinema; Scott's direction at least deserved an Oscar nomination, as did the film itself, the cinematography, the music, the film editing and the sound (they all failed to resound a single nod in all of the aforementioned categories). The only other sci-fi film I would compare this to as to having the same subtle reach and beautiful realization of cinematic artistry would be Peter Weir's "The Truman Show", a film which is, like "Blade Runner", less science fiction and more of a foretelling of things to come. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must not like being reminded of the gloom and doom that the world is apparently headed toward: I don't blame them, for it's nice to think of a world with no conceivable problems. But their relative lack of any type of cinematic appreciation is unforgivable especially in the past few years: the comforting strains of "Gandhi" and "E.T." over "Blade Runner"? This is a great film, no matter what the box-office receipts or Roger Ebert or Leonard Maltin think about it.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

**1/2 (Out of four)

[5/10 · 21 April 1999]

Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" is a film of pretentious platitudes and obvious intentions. Based on Stephen King's short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", the film stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, a banker wrongly accused of murdering his adulterous wife and her lover. Morgan Freeman delivers a much-deserved Academy-Award nominated performance as the hardened Red, the convict responsible for smuggling cigarettes into the penitentiary whose genuine depth allows him to form a friendship with Andy not based on the macho rules of the prison yard (Andy's demeanor is in face so falsely naive that many of the prisoners bet on him to be the first under pressure) but on a continuing sense of willpower and motivation in a place that genuinely lacks the atmosphere for such human emotions.

And yet whereas "The Shawshank Redemption" is in itself an honorable predilection of prison life and shows an understanding of the human spirit which is somehow lacking in the more recent prison movies (most notably Tom Selleck's "An Innocent Man" and Sylvester Stallone's "Lock Up"), the film is deemed exceptional only by your willingness to surrender to Darabont's predictable machinations. Darabont may be a talented screenwriter, and some of his creations here (such as the character played by William Sadler, who comes across during an inventory inspection a copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexander...Dumbass) are unmistakeably human, his portrayal of the Bible-thumping warden (Bob Gunton) cannot resist but to relegate itself to stereotype. The film's real downfall is in Tim Robbins' performance, who despite his squeaky-clean cherub face cannot project the inspiration needed to give this film its realistic element. And yet this is not a bad movie, just certainly not the best movie of all time. Some images of the movie will continue to stay with me: the cold-hearted sexual depravity of "the Sisters"; and in the infamous shot beautifully and rigidly painted by cinematographer Roger Deakins ("Fargo"), Dufresne basking in a downpour upon entering freedom. Unfortunately, the film isn't cohesive enough to warrant any more of those moments.

The Godfather (1972)

**** (Out of four)

[10/10 · 21 April 1999]

"The Godfather" is one of the crossroads one must cross before proclaiming oneself a movie fan and a genuine movie buff. Francis Ford Coppola's film is probably his most flawless, although it is NOT my favorite Coppola film (that honor belongs to the unmistakably problematic but highly visionary "Apocalypse Now"). Still, in the midst of a 90s cinema which seems to re-evalutate itself every five years or so with new computer-generated images and thusly cannot enjoy the same degree of timelessness of several earlier, better movies, "The Godfather" will undoubtedly hold its own as one of the most artistic endeavors in the relatively new medium of cinema.

The story has been told many times before: based on Mario Puzo's bestseller, the film examines the aura of the Italian Mafiosi as exemplified through the Corleone family, led by patriarch Vito (Marlon Brando, an Oscar winner in a very professional bit of acting). WWII-hero Michael (Al Pacino--the real star of the film as well as the real Best Actor of that year) comes home and breaks family tradition at his sister Connie's wedding ceremony not only by wearing his military uniform, but introducing his family to his WASP-ish girlfriend Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), the epitome of modernistic feminine and Protestant intentions in the Corleone's traditional Catholic--and increasingly outdated--worldview. The wedding scene is one of the great expositions of cinema, and yet the film lives up to all expectations by dashing us headlong into the Corleone's violent world. Of course who can forget the severed horse head in the mansion of the luxurious Hollywood producer, the murder of Luca Brasi, "sleeping with the fishes", Santino's bloody murder at the toll booth, Brando's death scene, the intercutting between the baptism and the murders, and especially the final scene as the door closes and Kay realizes the deceit her entire life will become? To launch into a detailed discussion of Coppola's masterly filmmaking would take beyond 1000 words, so let me just echo the comments of many when saying "The Godfather" is that priceless canoli one should always cherish amidst the decaying corpses of escalating Hollywood trash.