From: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com (movies-digest) To: movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: movies-digest V2 #400 Reply-To: movies-digest Sender: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk movies-digest Friday, March 21 2003 Volume 02 : Number 400 [MV] BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE / ** (PG-13) [MV] BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM / *** 1/2 (PG-13) [MV] IRREVERSIBLE / *** (Not rated) [MV] THE HUNTED / ***1/2 (R) [MV] SPIDER / *** (R) [MV] AGENT CODY BANKS / **1/2 (PG) [MV] RIVERS & TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME / ***1/2 (Not rated) [MV] WILLARD / **1/2 (PG-13) [MV] Win Three Colors/Star Wars Petition [MV] BOAT TRIP / 1/2* (R) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 07 Mar 2003 15:15:19 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE / ** (PG-13) BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE / ** (PG-13) March 7, 2003 Peter Sanderson: Steve Martin Charlene Morton: Queen Latifah Howie Rosenthal: Eugene Levy Mrs. Arness: Joan Plowright Kate: Jean Smart Sarah Sanderson: Kimberly J. Brown Georgey Sanderson: Angus T. Jones Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Adam Shankman. Written by Jason Filardi. Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language, sexual humor and drug material). BY ROGER EBERT I confess I expected Steve Martin and Queen Latifah to fall in love in "Bringing Down the House." That they avoid it violates all the laws of economical screenplay construction, since they are constantly thrown together, they go from hate to affection, and they get drunk together one night and tear up the living room together, which in movies of this kind is usually the closer. But, no, all they fall into is Newfound Respect, which, in a world of high-performance star vehicles, is the mini-van. Eugene Levy is brought off the bench to console the Queen, and Martin ends up back with his divorced wife (Jean Smart), who exists only so that he can go back to her. These two couples had better never double date, because under the table Queen and Steve are going to have their socks up each other's pants. Why, I asked myself, is their mutual sexual attraction disguised as roughhouse, when they are the stars and movie convention demands that they get it on? There isn't a shred of chemistry between Latifah and Levy (who likes the Queen's wildness and is infatuated with her cleavage, which is understandable but shallow--his infatuation, not her cleavage). I think it's because the movie, co-produced by Latifah, was Making a Point, which is that the Rich White Lawyer had better learn to Accept this Bitch on Her Own Terms instead of Merely Caving in to Her Sex Appeal. This may be a point worth making, but not in a comedy. I use the word "bitch" after some hesitation, to make a point: The movie is all about different ethnic styles of speech. It uses the B-word constantly (along, of course, with lots of "hos"), and I argue that since the MPAA rates the "language" PG-13, I can use it in a review. You kids under 13 who are reading this better be getting parental guidance from a POS. Emergency definition: POS (n., slang). Abbreviation used in teenage chat rooms, warning person at other end: "Parent over shoulder!" Martin plays Peter Sanderson, a high-powered lawyer with a trophy ex-wife, who lives in a posh Los Angeles neighborhood and speaks with meticulous precision he elevates to a kind of verbal constipation. Queen Latifah plays Charlene Morton, who he meets in an Internet chat room, where she is LawyerGirl. They both misrepresent their appearances--well, all right, she's guiltier than he is--and when they meet he's appalled to find, not a blond legal bimbo, but a trash-talking black ex-con who wants him to handle her case. Charlene can talk like a perfect middle-class lady, as she demonstrates, but the movie's point of pride is that she shouldn't have to. Peter can also talk like a black street dude, sort of. Maybe he learned it from his kids' rap records. The movie's conceit is that Peter keeps throwing Charlene out and she keeps coming back, because she's determined to prove her legal innocence. She breaks into his house, throws wild parties, embarrasses him at his club, and so on, until a magic night when she gets him drinking and dancing, plants his hands squarely on what Russ Meyer used to rhapsodically refer to as garbanzos, and breaks down his inhibitions. At this point--what? Wild nuzzling, rapturous caresses, shredded knickers, wild goat cries in the night? Peter takes her case, that's what, while Eugene Levy crawls out of his eyebrows and joins the tag-team. This is all wrong. It violates the immortal Stewart/Reagan principle: Steve Martin for Latifah, Eugene Levy for best friend. A comedy is not allowed to end with the couples incorrectly paired. It goes against the deeply traditional requirements of the audience. Here is a movie that ignores the Model Airplane Rule: First, make sure you have taken all of the pieces out of the box, then line them up in the order in which they will be needed. "Bringing Down the House" is glued together with one of the wings treated like a piece of tail. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:27 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM / *** 1/2 (PG-13) BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM / *** 1/2 (PG-13) March 12, 2003 Jesminder: Parminder K. Nagra Juliette: Keira Knightley Joe: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Mr. Bhamra: Anupam Kher Mrs. Bhamra: Shaheen Khan Pinky: Archie Panjabi Mel: Shaznay Lewis Alan: Frank Harper Paula: Juliet Stevenson Fox Searchlight presents a film directed by Gurinder Chadha. Written by Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges and Guljit Bindra. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language and sexual content). BY ROGER EBERT I saw more important films at Sundance 2003, but none more purely enjoyable than "Bend It Like Beckham," which is just about perfect as a teenage coming-of-age comedy. It stars a young actress of luminous appeal, it involves sports, romance and of course her older sister's wedding, and it has two misinformed soccer moms--one who doesn't know a thing about the game and another who doesn't even know her daughter plays it. The movie, set in London, tells the story of Jesminder Bjamra, known as "Jess," who comes from a traditional Indian family. Her parents are Sikhs who fled from Uganda to England, where her dad works at Heathrow airport. They live in the middle-class suburb of Hounslow, under the flight path of arriving jets, where her mother believes that Jess has two great duties in life: to learn to prepare a complete Indian meal, and to marry a nice Indian boy, in exactly that order. Jess plays soccer with boys in the park. In her family's living room is a large portrait of a Sikh spiritual leader, but above Jess's bed is her own inspiration--the British soccer superstar David Beckham, better known to some as Posh Spice's husband. To Beckham's portrait she confides her innermost dream, which is to play for England. Of course a girl cannot hope to be a soccer star, and an Indian girl should not play soccer at all, since in her mother's mind the game consists of "displaying your bare legs to complete strangers." Jess is seen in the park one day by Juliette (Keira Knightley), who plays for the Hounslow Harriers, a woman's team, and is recruited to join them. The coach is a young Irishman named Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and it is love at second or third sight--complicated, because Joe cannot date his players, and Juliette has a crush on him, too. But all of these elements make the film sound routine, and what makes it special is the bubbling energy of the cast and the warm joy with which Gurinder Chadha, the director and co-writer, tells her story. I am the first to admit that Gurinder Chadha is not a name on everybody's lips, but this is her third film and I can promise you she has an unfailing instinct for human comedy that makes you feel good and laugh out loud. Her previous film was the wonderful "What's Cooking," about four American ethnic families (African American, Latino, Jewish and Vietnamese) all preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, while their younger generations are connected in unsuspected ways. There is an emerging genre of comedies about second- and third-generation young people breaking loose from traditional parents ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is the most spectacular example), and I've seen these rite-of-entry comedies by directors with Filipino, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Iranian and Korean backgrounds, and even one, "Mississippi Masala," where Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury played two such characters whose stories meet. "Bend It Like Beckham," which adds a British flavor to its London Metroland masala, is good not because it is blindingly original but because it is flawless in executing what is, after all, a dependable formula. The parents must be strict and traditional, but also loving and funny, and Mr. and Mrs. Bhamra (Anupam Kher and Shaheen Khan) are classic examples of the type. So is Juliette's mother, Paula (the wry, funny British star Juliet Stevenson), who tries to talk her tomboy daughter into Wonderbras, and spends most of the movie fearing that a girl who doesn't want to wear one must be a lesbian. ("There's a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one without a boyfriend.") The editing by Justin Krish gets laughs all on its own with the precision that it uses to cut to reaction shots as the parents absorb one surprise after another. Jess, played by Parminder K. Nagra, is a physically exuberant girl whose love of soccer crosses over into a love of life. She runs onto the field as if simply at play, she does cartwheels after scoring goals, and although she deceives her parents about her soccer dreams, she loves them and understands their point of view. Her father, who played cricket in Uganda but was discriminated against by the local London club, still bears deep wounds, but "things are different now," Jess tells him, and there is the obligatory scene where he sneaks into the crowd at a match to see for himself. Can there be an Indian comedy without a wedding? "Monsoon Wedding" is the great example, and here, too, we get the loving preparation of food, the exuberant explosion of music, and the backstage drama. All ethnic comedies feature scenes that make you want to leave the theater and immediately start eating, and "Bend It Like Beckham" may inspire some of its fans to make Indian friends simply so they can be invited over for dinner. The movie's values run deep. It understands that for Jess' generation soccer is not about displaying bare legs (Jess has another reason to be shy about that), but it also understands the hopes and ambitions of parents--and, crucially, so does Jess, who handles the tentative romance with her coach in a way that combines tenderness with common sense. A closing scene at the airport, which in a lesser movie would have simply hammered out a happy ending, shows her tact and love. Like all good movies, "Bend It Like Beckham" crosses over to wide audiences. It's being promoted in the magazines and on the cable channels that teenage girls follow, but recently we showed it on our Ebert & Roeper Film Festival at Sea, to an audience that ranged in age from 7 to 81, with a 50ish median, and it was a huge success. For that matter, the hip Sundance audience, dressed in black and clutching cell phones and cappuccinos, loved it, too. And why not, since its characters and sensibility are so abundantly lovable. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:18 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] IRREVERSIBLE / *** (Not rated) IRREVERSIBLE / *** (Not rated) March 14, 2003 Alex: Monica Bellucci Marcus: Vincent Cassel Pierre: Albert Dupontel Philippe : Philippe Nahon Le Tenia: Jo Prestia Stephane: Stephane Drouot Mourad: Mourad Khima Lions Gate Films presents a film written and directed by Gaspar Noe. Running time: 99 minutes. No MPAA rating (extreme and disturbing violence, scenes of rape, sexual encounters). In French with English subtitles. BY ROGER EBERT "Irreversible" is a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable. The camera looks on unflinchingly as a woman is raped and beaten for several long, unrelenting minutes, and as a man has his face pounded in with a fire extinguisher, in an attack that continues until after he is apparently dead. That the movie has a serious purpose is to its credit but makes it no more bearable. Some of the critics at the screening walked out, but I stayed, sometimes closing my eyes, and now I will try to tell you why I think the writer and director, Gaspar Noe, made the film in this way. First, above all, and crucially, the story is told backward. Two other films have famously used that chronology: Harold Pinter's "Betrayal," the story of a love affair that ends (begins) in treachery, and Christopher Nolan's "Memento" (2000), which begins with the solution to a murder and tracks backward to its origin. Of "Betrayal," I wrote that a sad love story would be even more tragic if you could see into the future, so that even this joyous moment, this kiss, was in the shadow of eventual despair. Now consider "Irreversible." If it were told in chronological order, we would meet a couple very much in love: Alex (Monica Bellucci) and Marcus (Vincent Cassel). In a movie that is frank and free about nudity and sex, we see them relaxed and playful in bed, having sex and sharing time. Bellucci and Cassel were married in real life at the time the film was made and are at ease with each other. Then we would see them at a party, Alex wearing a dress that makes little mystery of her perfect breasts. We would see a man hitting on her. We would hear it asked how a man could let his lover go out in public dressed like that: Does he like to watch as men grow interested? We would meet Marcus' best friend, Pierre (Albert Dupontel), who himself was once a lover of Alex. Then we would follow Alex as she walks alone into a subway tunnel, on a quick errand that turns tragic when she is accosted by Le Tenia (Jo Prestia), a pimp who brutally and mercilessly rapes and beats her for what seems like an eternity, in a stationary-camera shot that goes on and on and never cuts away. And then we would follow Marcus and Pierre in a search for La Tenia, which leads to an S-M club named the Rectum, where La Tenia is finally discovered and beaten brutally, again in a shot that continues mercilessly, this time with a hand-held camera that seems to participate in the beating. As I said, for most people, unwatchable. Now consider what happens if you reverse the chronology, so that the film begins with shots of La Tenia being removed from the night club and tracks back through time to the warm and playful romance of the bedroom scenes. There are several ways in which this technique produces a fundamentally different film: 1. The film doesn't build up to violence and sex as its payoff, as pornography would. It begins with its two violent scenes, showing us the very worst immediately and then tracking back into lives that are about to be forever altered. 2. It creates a different kind of interest in those earlier scenes, which are foreshadowed for us but not for the characters. When Alex and Marcus caress and talk, we realize what a slender thread all happiness depends on. To know the future would not be a blessing but a curse. Life would be unlivable without the innocence of our ignorance.    3. Revenge precedes violation. The rapist is savagely punished before he commits his crime. At the same time, and this is significant, Marcus is the violent monster of the opening scenes, and La Tenia is a victim whose crime has not yet been seen (although we already know Alex has been assaulted). 4. The party scenes, and the revealing dress, are seen in hindsight as a risk that should not have been taken. Instead of making Alex look sexy and attractive, they make her look vulnerable and in danger. While it is true that a woman should be able to dress as she pleases, it is not always wise. 5. We know by the time we see Alex at the party, and earlier in bed, that she is not simply a sex object or a romantic partner, but a fierce woman who fights the rapist for every second of the rape. Who uses every tactic at her command to stop him. Who loses but does not surrender. It makes her sweetness and warmth much richer when we realize what darker weathers she harbors. This woman is not simply a sensuous being, as women so often simply are in the movies, but a fighter with a fierce survival instinct. The fact is, the reverse chronology makes "Irreversible" a film that structurally argues against rape and violence, while ordinary chronology would lead us down a seductive narrative path toward a shocking, exploitative payoff. By placing the ugliness at the beginning, Gaspar Noe forces us to think seriously about the sexual violence involved. The movie does not end with rape as its climax and send us out of the theater as if something had been communicated. It starts with it, and asks us to sit there for another hour and process our thoughts. It is therefore moral - at a structural level. As I said twice and will repeat again, most people will not want to see the film at all. It is so violent, it shows such cruelty, that it is a test most people will not want to endure. But it is unflinchingly honest about the crime of rape. It does not exploit. It does not pander. It has been said that no matter what it pretends, pornography argues for what it shows. "Irreversible" is not pornography. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:23 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] THE HUNTED / ***1/2 (R) THE HUNTED / ***1/2 (R) March 14, 2003 L.T. Bonham: Tommy Lee Jones Aaron Hallam: Benicio Del Toro Abby Durrell: Connie Nielsen Loretta Kravitz: Jenna Boyd Irene Kravitz: Leslie Stefanson Crumley: Robert Blanche Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by William Friedkin. Written by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths and Art Monterastelli. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (for strong bloody violence and some language). BY ROGER EBERT "The Hunted" is a pure and rather inspired example of the one-on-one chase movie. Like "The Fugitive," which also starred Tommy Lee Jones, it's about one man pursuing another more or less nonstop for the entire film. Walking in, I thought I knew what to expect, but i didn't anticipate how William Friedkin would jolt me with the immediate urgency of the action. This is not an arm's-length chase picture, but a close physical duel between its two main characters. Jones plays L.T. Bonham, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army who trains elite forces to stalk, track, hunt and kill. His men learn how to make weapons out of shards of rock, and forge knives from scrap metal. In a sequence proving we haven't seen everything yet, they learn how to kill an enemy by the numbers--leg artery, heart, neck, lung. That Jones can make this training seem real goes without saying; he has an understated, minimalist acting style that implies he's been teaching the class for a long time. One of his students is Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro), who fought in Kosovo in 1999 and had experiences there that warped him ("his battle stress has gone so deep it is part of his personality"). Back home in Oregon, offended by hunters using telescopic sights, he claims four victims--"those hunters were filleted like deer." Bonham recognizes the style and goes into the woods after him ("If I'm not back in two days, that will mean I'm dead"). Hallam's stress syndrome has made him into a radical defender of animal rights; he talks about chickens on assembly lines, and asks one cop how he'd feel if a higher life form were harvesting mankind. Of course, in killing the hunters, he has promoted himself to that superior lifeform, but this is not a movie about debate points. It is a chase. No modern director is more identified with chases that Friedkin, whose "The French Connection" and "To Live and Die in L.A." set the standard. Here the whole movie is a chase, sometimes at a crawl, as when Hallam drives a stolen car directly into a traffic jam. What makes the movie fresh is that it doesn't stand back and regard its pursuit as an exercise, but stays very close to the characters and focuses on the actual physical reality of their experience. Consider an early hand-to-hand combat between Bonham and Hallam. We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides. They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting. The chase sequences--through Oregon forests and city streets, on highways and bridges--are also reality-oriented. The cinematography, by the great Caleb Deschanel ("The Right Stuff") buries itself in the reality of the locations. The forests are wet and green, muddy and detailed. The leaves are not scenery but right in front of our faces, to be brushed aside. Running, hiding, stalking, the two men get dirty and tired and gasp for breath. We feel their physical effort; this isn't one of those movies where shirts are dry again in the next scene, and the hero has the breath for long speeches. "The Hunted" requires its skilled actors. Ordinary action stars would not do. The screenplay, by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths and Art Monterastelli, has a kind of minimalist clarity, in which nobody talks too much and everything depends on tone. Notice scenes where Del Toro is interrogated by other law officials. He doesn't give us the usual hostile, aggressive cliches, but seems to be trying to explain himself from a place so deep he can't make it real to outsiders. This man doesn't kill out of rage but out of sorrow. There are moments when Friedkin lays it on a little thick. The early how-to sequence, where Bonham's trainees learn how to make weapons from scratch, implies there will be a later sequence where they need to. Fair enough. But would Hallam, in the heat of a chase, have the time to build a fire from shavings, heat an iron rod, and hammer it into a knife? Even if Bonham cooperates by meanwhile pausing to chip his own flint weapon? Maybe not, or maybe the two hunters are ritualistically agreeing to face each other using only these tools of their trade. The resulting knife fight, which benefits from the earlier knife training sequence, is physical action of a high order. There are other characters in the movie, other relationships. A woman with a child, who Hallam visits (she likes him but is a little afraid). A woman who is an FBI field officer. Various cops. They add background and atmosphere, but "The Hunted" is about two hard-working men who are good at their jobs, although only one can be the best. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:22 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] SPIDER / *** (R) SPIDER / *** (R) March 14, 2003 Dennis 'Spider' Cleg: Ralph Fiennes Mrs. Cleg: Miranda Richardson Bill Cleg: Gabriel Byrne Mrs. Wilkinson: Lynn Redgrave Boy Spider: Bradley Hall Terrence: John Neville Freddy: Gary Reineke John: Philip Craig Gladys: Sara Stockbridge Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Patrick McGrath, based on his novel. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality, brief violence and language). BY ROGER EBERT He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them ... So Ahab is described in Moby Dick. The description matches Dennis Cleg, the subject (I hesitate to say "hero") of David Cronenberg's "Spider." Played by Ralph Fiennes, he is a man eaten away by a lifetime of inner torment; there is not one ounce on his frame that is not needed to support his suffering. Fiennes, so jolly as J. Lo's boyfriend in "Maid in Manhattan," looks here like a refugee from the slums of hell. We see him as the last man off a train to London, muttering to himself, picking up stray bits from the sidewalk, staring out through blank, uncomprehending eyes. He finds a boarding house in a cheerless district and is shown to a barren room by the gruff landlady (Lynn Redgrave). In the lounge, he meets an old man who explains kindly that the house has a "curious character, but one grows used to it after a few years." This is a halfway house, we learn, and Spider has just been released from a mental institution. In the morning, the landlady bursts into his room without knocking--just like a mother, we think, and, indeed, later he will confuse her with his stepmother. For that matter, his mother, his stepmother and an alternate version of the landlady are all played by the same actress (Miranda Richardson); we are meant to understand that her looming presence fills every part of his mind that is reserved for women. The movie is based on an early novel by Patrick McGrath. It enters into the subjective mind of "Spider" Cleg so completely that it's impossible to be sure what is real and what is not. We see everything through Spider's eyes, and he is not a reliable witness. He hardly seems aware of the present, so traumatized is he by the past. Whether they are trustworthy or not, his childhood memories are the landscape in which he wanders. In flashbacks, we meet his father, Bill Cleg (Gabriel Byrne), and mother (Richardson). Then we see his father making a rendezvous in a garden shed with Yvonne (also Richardson), a tramp from the pub. The mother discovers them there, is murdered with a spade and buried right then and there in the garden, with the little boy witnessing everything. Yvonne moves in, and at one point tells young Dennis, "Yes, it's true he murdered your mother. Try and think of me as your mother now." Why are the two characters played by the same actress? Is this an artistic decision, or a clue to Spider's mental state? We cannot tell for sure, because there is almost nothing in his life that Spider knows for sure. He is adrift in fear. Fiennes plays the character as a man who wants to take back every step, reconsider every word, question every decision. There is a younger version of the character, Spider as a boy, played by Bradley Hall. He is solemn and wide-eyed, is beaten with a belt at one point, has a childhood that functions as an open wound. We understand that this boy is the most important inhabitant of the older Spider's gaunt and wasted body. The movie is well made and acted, but it lacks dimension because it essentially has only one character, and he lacks dimension. We watch him and perhaps care for him, but we cannot identify with him because he is no longer capable of change and decision. He has long since stopped trying to tell apart his layers of memory, nightmare, experience and fantasy. He is lost and adrift. He wanders through memories, lost and sad, and we wander after him, knowing, somehow, that Spider is not going to get better--and that if he does, that would simply mean the loss of his paranoid fantasies, which would leave him with nothing. Sometimes people hold onto illnesses because they are defined by them, given distinction, made real. There seems to be no sense in which Spider could engage the world on terms that would make him any happier. There are three considerable artists at work here: Cronenberg, Fiennes and Richardson. They are at the service of a novelist who often writes of grotesque and melancholy characters; he is Britain's modern master of the gothic. His Spider Cleg lives in a closed system, like one of those sealed glass globes where little plants and tiny marine organisms trade their energy back and forth indefinitely. In Spider's globe, he feeds on his pain and it feeds in him. We feel that this exchange will go on and on, whether we watch or not. The details of the film and of the performances are meticulously realized; there is a reward in seeing artists working so well. But the story has no entry or exit, and is cold, sad and hopeless. Afterward, I feel more admiration than gratitude. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:17 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] AGENT CODY BANKS / **1/2 (PG) AGENT CODY BANKS / **1/2 (PG) March 14, 2003 Cody Banks: Frankie Muniz Natalie Connors: Hilary Duff Ronica Miles: Angie Harmon Mrs. Banks: Cynthia Stevenson Dr. Connors: Martin Donovan MGM presents a film directed by Harald Zwart. Written by Zack Stentz, Ashley Edward Miller, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Based on a story by Jeffrey Jurgensen. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG (for action violence, mild language and some sensual content). Opening today at local theaters. BY ROGER EBERT Imagine James Bond as a suburban American 15-year-old, and you have "Agent Cody Banks," a high-speed, high-tech kiddie thriller that's kinda cute but sorta relentless. Frankie Muniz stars as Cody, whose martial arts skills, skateboarding, ceiling-walking and extreme snowboarding are all the more remarkable when you consider that he goes into action before the CIA has time to give him much more than what, in the Bond pictures, is the Q routine with the neat gizmos. Frankie lives with his parents (Cynthia Stevenson and Daniel Roebuck), who mean well but are so inattentive they don't notice their son has become a spy with international missions. His CIA handler (Angie Harmon, low-cut and sexy) wants him to befriend a classmate named Natalie Connors (Hilary Duff, from "Lizzie McGuire"). Frankie is, alas, so tongue-tied around girls that his grade-school brother can boast, "Cody's almost 16 and I've had twice as many dates as he has." Cody fights back ("Sitting in a treehouse doesn't count"), but the kid is serene ("It does when you're playing doctor"). Natalie attends the ultra-exclusive William Donovan Prep School, no doubt named for the famous World War II spy "Wild Bill" Donovan, and Frankie transfers there, uses his karate skills to silence hecklers and ends up on a mission to liberate Natalie's father, Dr. Connors (Martin Donovan), from the clutches of the evil masterminds Brinkman and Molay (Ian McShane and Arnold Vosloo), who want to (we know this part by heart) Attain World Domination by using the doctor's inventions--microscopic Nanobots that can eat through anything. The movie imitates its Bond origins with a lot of neat toys. Cody is given a BMW skateboard that has unsuspected versatility, and a jet-powered snowboard, and a sports car, and X-ray glasses (Hello, Angie Harmon!) and a watch that will send electricity through your enemies, although I think (I'm not sure about this) you should not be wearing it yourself at the time. The set design includes the scientist's laboratory in underground World Domination Headquarters--which includes, as students of Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary will not be surprised to learn, commodious and well-lighted overhead air ducts so that Cody can position himself in comfort directly above all important conversations. There are also CIA regional headquarters, with a conference table that looks designed by Captain Nemo in a nightmare. We learn that the CIA runs summer camps to train kids to become junior spies, although why Harmon, who seems to be playing Young Mrs. Robinson, is their handler is hard to explain--maybe she's there for the dads, in the movie and in the audience. The movie will be compared with the two "Spy Kids" pictures, and looks more expensive and high-tech but isn't as much fun. It has a lot of skill and energy, but its wit is more predictable and less delightful. It's a well-made movie, to be sure, and will probably entertain its target audience, but its target audience is probably not reading this review, and you (for whatever reason) are. The difference is, I could look you in the eye and recommend you go see the "Spy Kids" movies, but this one, if you're not a kid, I don't think so. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:20 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] RIVERS & TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME / ***1/2 (Not rated) RIVERS & TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME / ***1/2 (Not rated) March 14, 2003 Roxie Releasing presents a documentary directed by Thomas Riedel-sheimer. Running time: 90 minutes. No MPAA rating (no objectionable content). BY ROGER EBERT Have you ever watched--no, better, have you ever been a young child intent on building something out of the materials at hand in the woods, or by a stream, or at the beach? Have you seen the happiness of an adult joining kids and slowly slipping out of adulthood and into the absorbing process of this ... and now ... and over here ... and build this up ... and it should go like this? The artist Andy Goldsworthy lives in that world of making things. They have no names, they are Things. He brings order to leaves or twigs or icicles and then surrenders them to the process of nature. He will kneel for hours by the oceanside, creating a cairn of stones that balances precariously, the weight on the top holding the sides in place, and then the tide will come in and wash away the sand beneath, and the cairn will collapse, as it must, as it should. "The very thing that brought the thing to be is the thing that will cause its death," Goldsworthy explains, as his elegant, spiraled constructions once again become random piles of stones on the beach. As with Andy's stones, so with our lives. "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time" is a documentary that opened in San Francisco in mid-2002 and just kept running, moving from one theater to another, finding its audience not so much through word of mouth as through hand on elbow, as friends steered friends into the theater, telling them that this was a movie they had to see. I started getting e-mails about it months ago. Had I seen it? I hadn't even heard of it. It is a film about a man wholly absorbed in the moment. He wanders woods and riverbanks, finding materials and playing with them, fitting them together, piling them up, weaving them, creating beautiful arrangements that he photographs before they return to chaos. He knows that you can warm the end of an icicle just enough to make it start to melt, and then hold it against another icicle, and it will stick. With that knowledge, he makes an ice sculpture, and then it melts in the sun and is over. Some of his constructions are of magical beauty, as if left behind by beings who disappeared before the dawn. He finds a way to arrange twigs in a kind of web. He makes a spiral of rocks that fans out from a small base and then closes in again, a weight on top holding it together. This is not easy, and he gives us pointers: "Top control can be the death of a work." Often Andy will be ... almost there ... right on the edge ... holding his breath as one last piece goes into place ... and then the whole construction will collapse, and he will look deflated, defeated, for a moment ("Damn!"), and then start again: "When I build something, I often take it to the very edge of its collapse, and that's a very beautiful balance." His art needs no explanation. We go into modern art galleries and find work we cannot comprehend as art. We see Damien Hurst's sheep, cut down the middle and embedded in plastic, and we cannot understand how it won the Turner Prize (forgetting that no one thought Turner was making art, either). We suppose that Concepts and Statements are involved. But with Andy Goldsworthy, not one word of explanation is necessary, because every single one of us has made something like his art. We have piled stones or made architectural constructions out of sand, or played Pick-Up Stix, and we know exactly what he is trying to do--and why. Yes, why, because his art takes him into that Zone where time drops away and we forget our left-brain concerns and are utterly absorbed by whether this ... could go like this ... without the whole thing falling apart. The documentary, directed, photographed and edited by Thomas Riedelsheimer, a German filmmaker, goes home with Goldsworthy to Penpont, Scotland, where we see him spending some time with his wife and kids. It follows him to a museum in the South of France, and to an old stone wall in Canada that he wants to rebuild in his own way. It visits with him old stone markers high in mountains, built by early travelers to mark the path. And it offers extraordinary beauty. We watch as he smashes stones to release their cyan content and uses that bright-red dye to make spectacular patterns in the currents and whirlpools of streams. We see a long rope of linked leaves, bright green, uncoil as it floats downstream. Before, we saw only the surface of the water, but now the movement of the leaves reveals its current and structure. What a happy man. Watching this movie is like daydreaming. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2003 19:14:25 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] WILLARD / **1/2 (PG-13) WILLARD / **1/2 (PG-13) March 14, 2003 Willard Stiles: Crispin Glover Henrietta Stiles: Jackie Burroughs Frank Martin: R. Lee Ermey Cathryn: Laura Elena Harring Detective Boxer: David Parker New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Glen Morgan. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for terror/violence, some sexual content and language). BY ROGER EBERT You never know what a rat is going to do next, which is one of the big problems with rats. In "Willard," you mostly do know what the rats are going to do next, which is a big problem with the film. That's because Willard is able to marshal his rats into disciplined groups that scurry off on missions on his behalf; he is the Dr. Dolittle of pest control. "Willard" is a remake of the 1971 film, which was a surprise hit at the box office. My explanation at the time: People had been waiting a long time to see Ernest Borgnine eaten by rats and weren't about to miss the opportunity. The new film looks better, moves faster and is more artistic than the original, but it doesn't work as a horror film--and since it is a horror film, that's fatal. It has attitude and a look, but the rats aren't scary. Consider an early scene where Willard (Crispin Glover) goes down in the cellar after his mother complains of rat infestation. The fuse box blows and he's down to a flashlight, and this should be a formula for a scary scene (remember Ellen Burstyn in the attic with a flashlight in "The Exorcist"). But the scene isn't frightening--ever. The blowing of the fuse is scarier than anything else that happens in the basement. The plot is essentially a remake of the earlier "Willard," but with elements suggesting it is a sequel. A portrait that hangs in the family home, for example, shows Bruce Davison as Willard's father--and Davison, of course, was the original Willard. So hold on. If that Willard was this Willard's father, then that means that this Willard's mother (Jackie Burroughs) was that Willard's wife and has become a shrew just like her mother-in-law, and young Willard still works for an evil man named Mr. Martin (R. Lee Ermey), which was the Borgnine character's name, so he must be Martin Jr. In the new movie, Willard's mom complains about rats in the cellar and Mr. Martin insults Willard and threatens his job, and the sins of the parents are visited on the sequel. The best thing in the movie is Crispin Glover's performance. He affects dark, sunken eyes, and a slight stoop, and is very pale, and has one of those haircuts that shouts out: Look how gothic and miserable I am. There is real wit in the performance. And wit, too, in R. Lee Ermey's performance as the boss, which draws heavily on Ermey's real-life experience as a drill sergeant. The human actors are OK, but the rodent actors (some real, some special effects) are like a prop that turns up on demand and behaves (or misbehaves) flawlessly. A few of the rats pop out: Socrates, Willard's choice for leader, and Ben, who is Ben's choice for leader. Ben is a very big rat (played, according to ominous information I found on the Web, "by an animal that is not a rat"). Laura Elena Harring, the brunet sex bomb from "Mulholland Drive," turns up as a worker in Willard's office who worries about him and even comes to his home to see if he's all right. My theory about why she likes him: He is the only man in a 100-mile radius who has never tried to pick her up. Willard is too morose and inward and Anthony Perkinsy. If they'd reinvented the movie as a character study, not so much about the rats as about Willard, they might have come up with something. Here the rats simply sweep across the screen in an animated tide, and instead of thinking, Eek! Rats!, we're thinking about how it was done. That's not what you're supposed to be thinking about during a horror movie. Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 05:20:18 -0500 From: "DVD Movie Central" Subject: [MV] Win Three Colors/Star Wars Petition This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - ------=_NextPart_000_005F_01C2EF69.906F1A00 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Greetings, friends! Our new contest is up and running today, and we've got a good one for = you this time...two lucky winners will take home Miramax's excellent new = Three Colors Trilogy box set! Just go to www.dvdmoviecentral.com and click on "Feel Lucky?" on the = above nav bar for details and to get your entries in. And while you're there, for those of you who are disappointed in George = Lucas' decision NOT to release the original Star Wars Trilogy to DVD in = their original form (ONLY the enhanced special editions), take a moment = to scroll down and find the Star Wars petition button on the left side. = Take a moment to sign it...it's quick and easy and secure. DMC gets = nothing in return for this, of course...just a public service to DVD = fans. Stay safe, and thanks for reading DMC! Mike J DVD Movie Central www.dvdmoviecentral.com=20 - ------=_NextPart_000_005F_01C2EF69.906F1A00 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Greetings, friends!
Our new contest is up and running = today, and we've=20 got a good one for you this time...two lucky winners will take home = Miramax's=20 excellent new Three Colors Trilogy box set!
 
Just go to www.dvdmoviecentral.com and = click on=20 "Feel Lucky?" on the above nav bar for details and to get your entries=20 in.
 
And while you're there, for those of = you who are=20 disappointed in George Lucas' decision NOT to release the original Star = Wars=20 Trilogy to DVD in their original form (ONLY the enhanced special = editions), take=20 a moment to scroll down and find the Star Wars petition button on the = left=20 side.  Take a moment to sign it...it's quick and easy and=20 secure.  DMC gets nothing in return for this, of course...just a = public=20 service to DVD fans.
 
Stay safe, and thanks for reading = DMC!
 
Mike J
DVD Movie Central
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- ------=_NextPart_000_005F_01C2EF69.906F1A00-- [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Mar 2003 02:55:04 GMT From: gregorys@xmission.com Subject: [MV] BOAT TRIP / 1/2* (R) BOAT TRIP / 1/2* (R) March 21, 2003 Jerry: Cuba Gooding Jr. Nick: Horatio Sanz Felicia: Vivica A. Fox Gabriela: Roselyn Sanchez Hector: Maurice Godin Sonja: Lin Shaye Inga: Victoria Silvstedt Malcolm: Richard Roundtree Artisan Entertainment presents a film directed by Mort Nathan. Written by Nathan and William Bigelow. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexual content, language and some drug material). BY ROGER EBERT "Boat Trip" arrives preceded by publicity saying many homosexuals have been outraged by the film. Now that it's in theaters, everybody else has a chance to join them. Not that the film is outrageous. That would be asking too much. It is dim-witted, unfunny, too shallow to be offensive, and way too conventional to use all of those people standing around in the background wearing leather and chains and waiting hopefully for their cues. This is a movie made for nobody, about nothing. The premise: Jerry (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is depressed after being dumped by his girl (Vivica A. Fox). His best buddy Nick (Horatio Sanz) cheers him up: They'll take a cruise together. Nick has heard that the ships are jammed with lonely women. But they offend a travel agent, who books them on a cruise of gay men, ho ho. Well, it could be funny. Different characters in a different story with more wit and insight might have done the trick. But "Boat Trip" requires its heroes to be so unobservant that it takes them hours to even figure out it's a gay cruise. And then they go into heterosexual panic mode, until the profoundly conventional screenplay supplies the only possible outcome: The sidekick discovers that he's gay, and the hero discovers a sexy woman on board and falls in love with her. Her name is Gabriela (Roselyn Sanchez), and despite the fact that she's the choreographer on a gay cruise, she knows so little about gay men that she falls for Jerry's strategy: He will pretend to be gay, so that he can get close to her and then dramatically unveil his identity, or something. Uh, huh. Even Hector, the cross-dressing queen in the next stateroom, knows a straight when he sees one: "You want to convince people you are gay, and you don't know the words to 'I Will Survive'?" The gays protesting the movie say it deals in stereotypes. So it does, but then again, so does the annual gay parade, and so do many gay nightclubs, where role-playing is part of the scene. Yes, there are transvestites and leather guys and muscle boys on the cruise, but there are also more conventional types, like Nick's poker-playing buddies. The one ray of wit in the entire film is provided by Roger Moore, as a homosexual man who calmly wanders through the plot dispensing sanity, as when, at the bar, he listens to the music and sighs, "Why do they always play Liza?" One of the movie's problems is a disconnect between various levels of reality. Some of the scenes play as if they are intended to be realistic. Then Jerry or Nick go into hysterics of overacting. Then Jerry attempts to signal a helicopter to rescue him, and shoots it down with a flare gun. Then it turns out to be carrying the Swedish Sun-Tanning Team, on its way to the Hawaiian Tropics finals. Then Jerry asks Gabriela to describe her oral sex technique, which she does so with the accuracy and detail of a porn film, and then Jerry--but that pathetic moment you will have to witness for yourself. Or maybe you will not. Note: The credit cookies weren't very funny, either, but at least they kept me in the theater long enough to notice the credits for the film's Greek Support Team. 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 #400 **************************** [ To quit the movies-digest mailing list (big mistake), send the message ] [ "unsubscribe movies-digest" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ]