Though it loses some of its steam before the end, this is an uncommonly affecting and unhackneyed story about a friendship between two alienated 11-year-old boys from neighboring middle-class, single-parent homes, one of whom has AIDS. Working from an original script by Robert Kuhn that mixes comedy and tragedy as if they were kissing cousins, actor Peter Horton makes an impressive directorial debut. Though the story is provisionally about intolerance of and ignorance about AIDS, it focuses on the boys’ friendship and adventures–including a Huckleberry Finn-like escape down the river in search of the cure of the title–and the actors do an exceptional job with it, especially Brad Renfro (The Client) and Annabella Sciorra. With Joseph Mazzello, Diana Scarwid, and, in a part that seems to have been severely trimmed, Bruce Davison. Ford City, Norridge, Gardens, Golf Glen, Lincoln Village, Water Tower. Read more
Apart from its plot structure, there are scarcely any traces left of the Henry Hathaway noir thriller scripted by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer that this supposedly reprises; but even though it proceeds in fits and starts, it’s still a pretty good crime thriller on its own terms. Director Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, Single White Female), a onetime French New Wave producer who’s done a better job of adapting to the Hollywood mainstream than any of his former colleagues, does an able job with Richard Price’s script about an ex-con (David Caruso) who gets pulled back into crime by both the mob and the police, the latter forcing him to become a police spy. The movie never quite discovers a style of its own, but it manages to tell a pretty good story about contemporary corruption inside the law as well as outside, and even if Nicolas Cage’s edgy portrait of a psycho criminal can’t hold a candle to Richard Widmark’s in the original, the secondary castincluding Samuel L. Jackson, Stanley Tucci, Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames, Helen Hunt, and Kathryn Erbedoes a nice job of filling out the canvas. (JR) Read more
A sensationalist grunge festival spiked with dollops of poetry on the sound track, provisionally derived (by Bryan Goluboff) from Jim Carroll’s autobiographical book of the same title. Leonardo DiCaprio does an impressive job as the hero-narrator, but the parade of horrors offered by the script and Scott Kalvert’s direction sheds a lot more heat than light on the problems of a Catholic teenager in New York City who plays basketball, becomes hooked on drugs, and enters a life of crime and degradation. Significantly, the movie keeps the hero’s reformation offscreen as well as unexplained; it’s more interested in shock effects than in candor or elucidation. With Bruno Kirby, Lorraine Bracco, Ernie Hudson, Patrick McGaw, James Madio, and Mark Wahlberg (1995, 102 min.). (JR) Read more
Though it loses some of its steam before the end, this is an uncommonly affecting and unhackneyed story about a friendship between two alienated 11-year-old boys from neighboring middle-class, single-parent homes, one of whom has AIDS. Working from an original script by Robert Kuhn that mixes comedy and tragedy as if they were kissing cousins, actor Peter Horton makes an impressive directorial debut. Though the story is provisionally about intolerance of and ignorance about AIDS, it focuses on the boys’ friendship and adventuresincluding a Huckleberry Finn-like escape down a river in search of the cure of the titleand the actors do an exceptional job with it, especially Brad Renfro (The Client) and Annabella Sciorra. With Joseph Mazzello, Diana Scarwid, and, in a part that seems to have been severely trimmed, Bruce Davison. (JR) Read more
This 94-minute Imax documentary by Stephen Low (1991) has the same nonaesthetic features of other films in this format–most notably a TV-like lack of precise composition necessitated by the curved screen–but its subject, the risky Canadian-American-Russian expedition to pick over the wreckage of the Titanic, has an inherent fascination and haunted poetry that triumphs over the sometimes hokey, often trumped-up presentation; at times the film becomes a kind of undersea 2001. Oddly, the crew participants are encouraged to relate to the camera like actors and some of the camera angles suggest those of a fiction film (significantly, storyboards are alluded to in the final credits). But a judicious combination of period photographs (some genuine, some composites), a contemporary interview with one of the few living survivors, and views of the ship’s remnants two and a half miles below the ocean’s surface give this the curious, paradoxical feel of a scientific ghost film. There will be a 15-minute intermission. Museum of Science and Industry, 57th Street at Lake Shore Drive, Friday and Saturday, April 14 and 15, 6:30 and 8:30; Sunday, April 16, 6:30; and Thursday, April 20, 6:30 and 8:30; 684-1414. Read more
People who have Beverly Hills Cop and Miami Vice encoded in their nervous systems and are looking for restimulation may be amused by this formulaic sass machine and police procedural, but I was writhing in my seat. Martin Lawrence and Will Smith play undercover Miami buddy cops who briefly exchange identities while holding a witness (Tea Leoni) in a drug murder under wraps, and the banter is so heavy that the movie seems to be doing all your laughing for you. The cops never seem to know what they’re doing, but then neither do the filmmakers, though I can’t imagine that casual audiences will care since there are plenty of big explosions at the end to reward them. Directed by Michael Bay from a script by several hacks; with Tcheky Karyo and Theresa Randle. (JR) Read more
An excellent one-hour documentary (1987) that charts the pivotal year in the career of Elvis Presley when he went from being an obscure rockabilly/blues performer who drove a truck to a national icon with several gold records to his credit. Armed with fascinating archival footage and rare still photographs, Alan and Susan Raymond, who originally made this for cable, do a persuasive job of suggesting that, contrary to most versions of the all-American success myth, Elvis’s artistic freedom and the authenticity of his relationship with his audience dwindled as he became more and more rich and famous. Indeed, the shape and direction of his career as a whole can be discerned during his first year as a star–which went from southern dances to singing “Hound Dog” in a tux to a basset hound in a top hat on Steve Allen’s TV show. On the same program, the Raymonds’ documentary Sweet Home Chicago (1993) about the history of Chess Records, including footage of and interviews with Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, and other blues performers. To be shown on video. Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, Friday and Saturday, April 7 and 8, 7:00 and 9:15, and Sunday, April 9, 5:30 and 7:45, 281-4114 Read more
A slight but charming parable with metaphysical undertones, this is a romantic comedy about a 21-year-old (Johnny Depp) who believes himself to be Don Juan. After threatening suicide, he’s arrested and turned over to a psychiatric clinic, where a doctor on the verge of retirement (Marlon Brando) takes over his case, falls under the spell of the youth’s imaginary past, and finds his own romantic feelings for his wife (Faye Dunaway) rejuvenated. This first feature by former novelist and psychologist Jeremy Leven has a fairly rudimentary mise en scene, but the actors take over the proceedings with aplomb, and Brando and Dunaway have the grace to turn much of the show over to Depp, who carries the burden with ease. Coproduced by Francis Ford Coppola. With Rachel Ticotin, Bob Dishy, Talisa Soto, Marita Geraghty, and Richard Sarafian. Ford City, Norridge, Old Orchard, Webster Place, Golf Glen, Lincoln Village, North Riverside, Water Tower. Read more
A lot of time is squandered in setting up this celebration of the English music hall by writer-director Peter Chelsom (Hear My Song). The needlessly cluttered plot offers an obscure intrigue involving French smugglers, and there’s a mainly wasted Jerry Lewis. But once the film settles in Blackpool, where the putative hero (Oliver Platt), a failed comic, goes in search of new material as well as his childhood roots, English music hall comics (Freddie Davies, George Carl, andespeciallyLee Evans) gradually take over the movie, and it gets better and better, eventually climaxing in a jaw-dropping finale. Passing compensations are offered by Lewis and Leslie Caron, and also on hand are Richard Griffiths and Oliver Reed; Peter Flannery collaborated on the screenplay. (JR) Read more
For many of its historical details, I found this James Ivory-Ruth Prawer Jhabvala account of Thomas Jefferson’s five-year stint as ambassador to France (1784-’89) a lot more absorbing and interesting than their usual brand of Classics Illustratedeven if the Gourmet-style consumerist spreads remain pretty much the same. But by the time they get around to articulating a story, the inhibitions imposed by their good taste begin to seem more like gutlessness, and what initially promises to be an exposure of American liberal doublethink about slavery winds up as a querulous wimp out on a subject that the underrated Mandingo is better equipped to deal with. I don’t feel qualified to comment on the accuracy of this portrait of Jefferson, but Nick Nolte does what he can to suggest unplumbed depths, and the other actorsincluding Greta Scacchi, Gwyneth Paltrow, Thandie Newton, Seth Gilliam, Simon Callow, Nancy Marchand, Charlotte de Turckheim, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Michael Lonsdale, and James Earl Jonesvie with the varied decor in holding one’s respectful attention (1995). (JR) Read more
A slight but charming parable with metaphysical undertones, this 1995 romantic comedy stars Johnny Depp as a 21-year-old who believes himself to be the famous Don Juan. After threatening suicide, he’s arrested and turned over to a psychiatric clinic, where a doctor on the verge of retirement (Marlon Brando) takes over his case, falls under the spell of the youth’s imaginary past, and finds his own romantic feelings for his wife (Faye Dunaway) rejuvenated. This first feature by novelist and psychologist Jeremy Leven has a fairly rudimentary mise en scene, but the actors take over the proceedings with aplomb, and Brando and Dunaway have the grace to turn much of the show over to Depp, who carries the burden with ease. Coproduced by Francis Ford Coppola. With Rachel Ticotin, Bob Dishy, Talisa Soto, Marita Geraghty, and Richard Sarafian. PG-13, 97 min. (JR) Read more
The first feature (1988) of the quirky, original, and subversive Australian writer-director Ann Turner, whose Dallas Doll was one of the best and weirdest independent efforts of its year. Celia isn’t quite as good, but it tells a fascinating and disquieting story, set in 1957 Melbourne, about the effects of anticommunism and a rabbit plague on the nine-year-old girl of the title. Her grandmother, who dies just before the film begins, had been a member of the Australian Communist Party, as are the parents of the children who live next door, with whom Celia forms a blood pact. Her father and uncle’s intolerance of communists is elaborately cross-referenced with local fears about proliferating rabbits, which have dire consequences for Celia when she acquires a pet bunny; her forms of rebellion escalate to voodoo rites and ultimately murder. The storytelling isn’t as streamlined as one might wish, but the performance of Rebecca Smart as Celia and Turner’s passionate viewpoint make this both arresting and distinctive. With Nicholas Eadie, Maryanne Fahey, Victoria Longley, and William Zappa. (JR) Read more
Directed by Detlef Sierck shortly before he became Douglas Sirk, this Nazi-era vehicle (1937) for superstar Zarah Leander evokes the semiracist ambience of an Esther Williams-Fernando Lamas musical of the 50s. A Swedish woman falls for a Latin lover in tropical climes, but the fantasy sours as the heroine and her son begin to feel like prisoners. Kitschy fun, but not a patch on Final Accord, the masterpiece Sirk made in Germany the prior year. In German with subtitles. 98 min. (JR) Read more
If you can swallow one more amnesia plot and one more recycling of favorite bits from Godard’s Bande a part, pressed to serve yet another postmodernist antithriller about redemption, this has its compensations (1994). Even if the usually enjoyable Hal Hartley seems more at home on Long Island than in New York City, his chosen turf here, and Martin Donovan seems less comfortable than he did in Hartley’s Trust, the weird and wonderful Elina L Read more
The fourth feature (1995) by this country’s most gifted black filmmaker, Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), is his first with a directly political edgea heartfelt and persuasive look at the racism and corruption of the Los Angeles police force, based on a true story and calculated to burn its hard lessons straight into your skull. The plot concerns the adjustments made by a sincere black rookie cop (Michael Boatman) who joins an all-white precinct and wants to be accepted by his fellow officers; his only real ally turns out to be the one woman in the precinct (Lori Petty, in a singular performance), a Jew who gets plenty of abuse herself. When a murder case arises involving a black suspect (Ice Cube), the hero’s decision to perjure himself in order to support his white partner opens a Pandora’s box of ironies and ambiguities that the movie squarely faces. The distributor forced him to tone down the anger and despair of his original ending, but this still packs a mighty punch. With Elliott Gould and M. Emmet Walsh. 108 min. (JR) Read more
