It’s been too many years since I’ve seen Zoltan Korda’s celebrated 1951 film with Sidney Poitier and Canada Lee for me to offer a detailed comparison of that adaptation of the Alan Paton novel with this new version. Set in South Africa in the 1940s, the film deals with the crisis of a black pastor (James Earl Jones) whose estranged son has killed the son of a wealthy white landowner (Richard Harris). Directed by Darrell Roodt from a screenplay by Ron Harwood, this has a strong sense of dignity about its characters, and Jones and Harris are both effective. Whether it deserves to replace the Korda version is another matter. With Dambisa Kente, Eric Miyeni, and Vusi Kunene. (JR) Read more
The theory behind this 1995 release was that if Quentin Tarantino, Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, and Robert Rodriguezfour American independents who became stars at Sundancegot together to create separate sketches, each taking place in a separate room of the same LA hotel and linked only by a bellboy dispensing room service (Tim Roth), something wonderful would happen. Instead, each writer-director wound up making an allegorical sketch about the unlimited power of being a writer-director. The results are mainly awful, and even Roth got saddled with a mannered part that he can’t comfortably play. (An earlier cut of this movie suggested it may once have had something to do with Jerry Lewis in The Bellboy.) Rodriguez’s sketch, about a couple of mischievous kids left alone for an evening by Antonio Banderas, is passable, and Anders’s at least has some star power (Valeria Golino, Madonna, Lili Taylor, and Ione Skye as a coven of witches). But the Rockwell and Tarantino contributions are strident embarrassments, each reeking with grandiloquent self-hatred parading as comedy. The first is basically about tying up and humiliating Rockwell’s wife, Jennifer Beals; the second, adapting an old Alfred Hitchcock TV script, is about Tarantino playing a nouveau riche asshole director eager to show off his bankroll. Read more
Given such an entertaining castWhitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, and Gregory Hines for startersone might have thought this adaptation by Terry McMillan (working with Ronald Bass) of her best-selling novel about four black women friends living in the southwest to be foolproof. Alas, the direction of Forest Whitaker, despite his considerable gifts as an actor, combined with the poorly structured script, makes the film sluggish and poorly paced. Bring along your lunch. With Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williamson, Leon, Michael Beach, Wendell Pierce, and Donald Adeosun Faison. (JR) Read more
I had my hopes, but Anne of the Indies this ain’tnot only because Geena Davis as a woman pirate is no Jean Peters but even more because Renny Harlin, for all his modest gifts, is no Jacques Tourneur and Matthew Modine, for heaven’s sake, is no action hero. Set in the 17th century and naturally involving buried treasure and picturesque landscapes, this zillion-dollar mess is basically a celebration of human slaughter with echoes of Waterworld, and it long overstays its welcome. With Frank Langella (in the Dennis Hopper part), Maury Chaykin, Patrick Malahide, Stan Shaw, and Rex Linn. The script, based on a story by loads of people (and reeking of committee think), is by Robert King and Marc Norman. (JR) Read more
