I was afraid I’d find this Swedish period piece by Ake Sandgren cutesy, but I wound up liking it quite a bit. Based on an autobiographical novel by Roland Schutt, it’s set in Stockholm in the 20s. The ten-year-old hero’s mother is a Russian Jew, his father’s a revolutionary socialist, and his older brother, an aspiring boxer, keeps punching him in the nose. The anti-Semitism of Roland’s teacher and schoolmates and the illegal activities of his parents–which include distributing condoms to workers and attending incendiary political meetings–make him something of a defiant outcast. All the characters are treated with a fair amount of humor and affection (the father, played by Stellan Skarsgard, is indelible), the period details are well handled, and the episodic story line is fairly engaging. The film doesn’t dig too deep, but it might make you feel pretty good. With Jesper Salen and Basia Frydman. Music Box, Friday through Thursday, July 29 through August 4. Read more
In my review of Blown Away last week, an editing error made it sound as if an Irish wedding takes place as Tommy Lee Jones is blasting his way out of a prison cell at the beginning of the movie, and as if Jeff Bridges appears in the opening sequence. In fact the wedding and Bridges’s first appearance take place later in the movie.
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As far as I know this is something of a first, at least since the 20s or 30s: a movie predicated on film theory playing in a commercial theater. Written, directed, and produced by American independents Scott McGehee and David Siegel, this odd black-and-white ‘Scope thriller (1993) about identity and social construction concerns a young man named Clay who becomes briefly acquainted with his half-brother Vincent. Vincent, who wants to flee the country for various reasons, secretly arranges to have Clay blown up in Vincent’s car wearing Vincent’s clothes; with everyone believing he’s dead, Vincent can easily disappear. But Clay survives the explosion, though he has amnesia, and with the help of a plastic surgeon and a psychoanalyst is “restored” to an identity that was never his–Vincent’s. A subversive spin is given to this material: Clay and Vincent are said by all the characters to be dead ringers, yet Clay is played by a black actor and Vincent by a white one–and no one ever comments on it. The film may be at times a little too smart (as well as a little too drab and mechanical) for its own good, but the witty, provocative implications of the central concept linger, and the story carries an interesting sting: this is a head scratcher that actually functions. Read more
Jim Carrey stars in this 1994 retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story that makes particular reference to The Nutty Professor. There are also multiple flourishes borrowed from Tex Avery cartoons, Gremlins, Nicholson’s Joker in Batman, and other standbys. The results are easy to watch, though awfully familiar and simpleminded. Directed by Charles Russell from a script by Mike Werb; with Peter Riegert, Peter Greene, and Amy Yasbeck. (JR) Read more
Eschewing fairy tales and other literary sources, Disney’s usual bread and butter for cartoon musicals, this animated feature about animal life in an African forest (1994) is based on an original script by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. The result is a step toward multiculturalism and ecological correctness, though not without a certain amount of confusion. The movie is not quite as entertaining as The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast, but it’s nice for once to see the Disney studio steering clear of the white-bread xenophobia typified by Aladdin and seeking to enlarge its stylistic palette as well as its thematic address. The songs are by Tim Rice and Elton John, and some of the actors supplying the characters’ voices are Rowan Atkinson, Matthew Broderick, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Moira Kelly, and Cheech Marin; Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff directed. 89 min. (JR) Read more
Derek Jarman’s kaleidoscopic experimental film (1987)a dark, poetic meditation on Thatcher Englandis visionary cinema at its best. Shot in Super-8, transferred to video for additional touches and processing, then transferred back to 35-millimeter, this work combines more than half a century of home movies of Jarman’s family, a documentary record of industrial and ecological ruin, and sustained looks at Jarman regulars Tilda Swinton and Spencer Leigh. The often astonishing results become increasingly spellbinding as the work proceeds. Over an evocative narration by Jarman (which includes apocalyptic quotes from such poets as T.S. Eliot and Allen Ginsberg) and stirring use of music and sound effects, images in black and white, sepia, and color explode and merge with mesmerizing intensity and build toward a powerful personal statement. (JR) Read more
Comedy writer-director Andrew Bergman only directs this timethe script is by Jane Andersonand the results, though watchable, aren’t nearly as funny as So Fine, The Freshman, or Honeymoon in Vegas. Still, there’s plenty of his sweetness as well as his feeling for Depression-style comedy (evident in his critical book We’re in the Money) in this tale about a good-natured good-guy cop (Nicolas Cage) giving a greasy-spoon waitress (Bridget Fonda) half of a lottery ticket in lieu of a tip, then having to confront his nagging, egocentric wife (Rosie Perez) when the ticket wins a jackpot. There’s something less than sweet about Perez’s character, but if viewers decide to take this all as a fairy tale it’s easy enough to see her as the wicked witch and rationalize all the ugliness. Bergman has better luck with Cage and Fonda, who manage to ooze charm despite the simplicities of the script. With Wendell Pierce, Seymour Cassel, Isaac Hayes, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, and Red Buttons. (JR) Read more
This extraordinary 1992 French documentary by Nicolas Philibert, which plunges the viewer into the world of deaf sign language, required Philibert to rethink such basic documentary techniques as framing, editing, and sound recording and mixing. All the sign language is subtitled in English, but the text seems to offer only a fraction of what’s being said: the men, women, and children are so expressive and personal in their beautifully orchestrated gestures and facial expressions that few professional actors could match them. Part of what’s so wondrous here is the spectacle of sign language itself, but equally fascinating is what’s being said about the language and its possibilities. By the end of this film one feels that people who communicate in sign language are capable of expressing thingsand expressing them in waysthat are beyond our grasp. 99 min. In French and sign language with subtitles. (JR) Read more
With a running time of 124 minutes, Taiwanese writer-director Ang Lee’s mildly charming 1994 follow-up to The Wedding Banquet may overstay its welcome a bit. The soap-opera plot concentrates on a master chef living in Taipei with his three grown daughters, and there’s a lot of food preparation along with traces of the sweet humor that made The Wedding Banquet a success. (The style, unlike that of such Taiwanese masters as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang, is fairly westernized, which undoubtedly explains why Lee’s film was distributed here.) In Mandarin with subtitles. (JR) Read more
One of the most interesting and effective aspects of this prizewinning documentary by Arthur Dong about gay men and lesbians in the military during World War II is the fact that it’s in black and white. Among other things, this puts contemporary interviews and archival footage on an equal footing. (Mark Adler’s serviceable score strengthens this continuity by playing over portions of both kinds of footage.) Adapted by Dong and Allan Berube from Berube’s 1990 book of the same title and narrated by Salome Jens, this informative and intelligent work provides a comprehensive historical context for the debates stirred up by Clinton’s efforts to allow gay men and women to serve in the armed forces. (JR) Read more
The abrasive manager (Danny Glover) of the California Angels is humanized by an orphan who becomes the team’s official mascota foster child with a pipeline to a flock of angels who end the team’s losing streak by invisibly assisting them on the playing field. Back in 1951, when this story was first filmedunder Clarence Brown’s direction, with Paul Douglas as the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirateswhat saved the potentially treacly material, if memory serves, was the good-natured sincerity. The same can be said for this version, directed by William Dear from a script by Holly Goldberg Sloan. Narrative suspense is admittedly kept to a minimum, and baseball purists may be offended by the role played by divine intervention. But as a neo-Dickensian Disney exercise in old-fashioned sentiment this has a certain charm and a sense of human decency that tended to win me over. The castGlover, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Danza, Brenda Fricker, Milton Davis Jr., Ben Johnson, and Jay O. Sandersis better than average too. (JR) Read more
As far as I know this was something of a first, at least since the 20s or 30s: a movie predicated on film theory that opened commercially. Written, directed, and produced by American independents Scott McGehee and David Siegel, this odd black-and-white ‘Scope thriller (1993) about identity and social construction concerns a young man named Clay who becomes briefly acquainted with his half brother Vincent. Vincent, who wants to flee the country, stages an accident meant to look like his own death, but substitutes Clay in his place. With everyone believing he’s dead, Vincent can easily disappear. But Clay survives the explosion, though he has amnesia, and with the help of a plastic surgeon and a psychoanalyst is restored to an identity that was never hisVincent’s. A subversive spin is given to this material: Clay and Vincent are said by all the characters to be dead ringers, yet Clay is played by a black actor and Vincent by a white oneand no one ever comments on it. The film may be at times a little too smart (as well as a little too drab and mechanical) for its own good, but the witty, provocative implications of the central concept linger, and the story carries an interesting sting: this is a head scratcher that actually functions. Read more
It isn’t a patch on Im Kwon-taek’s previous Fly High Run Far, though unlike that masterpiece, this 1993 feature made a killing at the Korean box office. How you respond to it will probably have a lot to do with how you respond to pansori, a traditional dirgelike Korean song form; the story recounts the travails of an itinerant pansori singer and the sacrifices made by his family, including two adopted children, over many years to sustain that art. With Kim Kyu-chul and Kim Myung-gon. In Korean with subtitles. 112 min. (JR) Read more
A single mother (Suzy Amis) comes home one day to find her suburban house in disarray and her two young children missing; a police lieutenant (Fred Ward) turns up and, convinced she murdered the children, proceeds to question her at length. These are the only two characters in this playlike, rather ritualized chamber piece (1993) with sadomasochistic overtones, which never strays from the house and its immediate environs. Written and precisely directed by Beth B (Vortex, Belladonna) and shot in Germany, this independent effort is sustained by the talented actors, though how much one warms to the ambiguous goings-on will depend a great deal on one’s own psychosexual predilections. (JR) Read more
Derek Jarman’s rarely seen, highly personalized 1979 version of the Shakespeare play, in an assortment of period styles; Caliban is an Edwardian butler, the settings are crumbling abbeys and mansions, and Elizabeth Welch is on hand to sing Stormy Weather. (JR) Read more
