In overall ambience, this is Sleepless in Seattle meets Parenthoodmore specifically, the tragicomic trials and tribulations of three recently divorced fathers (Matthew Modine, Randy Quaid, and Paul Reiser) in southern California suburbia. Everything tends to get underlined and overplayed, and the first stretch of the movie might be the lengthiest plug for McDonald’s in the history of cinema, but otherwise things are fairly tolerable and watchable, at least if one can accept the ultraconventional framework. Directed by Sam Weisman from a script by Gary David Goldberg and Brad Hall; with Janeane Garofalo, Amy Brenneman, Eliza Dushku, Ed Flanders, and Maria Pitillo; Rob Reiner is around as a fatuous radio talk show host specializing in divorced husbands. (JR) Read more
Subtitled 12 Movements to the Only Conclusion, this is the last feature made by virtuoso low-budget independent Jon Jost (All the Vermeers in New York, Sure Fire) before he split for Europe in 1993, and once you see it you’ll know why he left. A highly stylized, extremely sarcastic, and sexually explicit road movie about an ex-con and a former waitress on a motel-strewn path to crime and oblivion through Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and northern California, it’s a technical tour de force devoted to the shallowness of the couple and the beauty of the landscape. It’s boldly conceived and brilliantly executed, with an interesting semijazz score by Jost regular John A. English, though the whiny delivery of the heroine will probably grate on your nerves (as it was no doubt meant to do) and the highly distanced treatment of both characters, which periodically turns them into zombies, has none of the usual Hollywood consolations. If you think Natural Born Killers was innovative and avant-garde, try this nasty piece of work. With Howard Swain and Nancy Carlin. A U.S. premiere. Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, Friday, March 10, 7:00 and 9:00; Saturday and Sunday, March 11 and 12, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, and 9:00; and Monday through Thursday, March 13 through 16, 7:00 and 9:00; 281-4114. Read more
This may be the best of writer-director Atom Egoyan’s slick, Canadian carriage-trade productions (the other two are Speaking Parts and The Adjuster), though it’s also a regression, both formally and thematically, compared to his previous film, Calendar. The central location–a triumph of lush, imaginative set design–is a sort of strip club where young female dancers sit at male customers’ tables and verbally cater to their psychic needs; at the center of this faux-tropical establishment is an odd little house where the club’s pregnant owner hangs out with the jaundiced announcer (Egoyan regulars Arsinee Khanjian and Elias Koteas), voyeuristically overseeing the voyeuristic clientele. The main customer is still mourning the death of his young daughter, and other significant characters include a dancer who sits at his table, a baby-sitter, and an eccentric smuggler whose path briefly crosses that of the bereaved father. As a narrative this is something of a tease, building toward a denouement straight out of Freud; its structure both benefits and suffers from Egoyan’s customary splintered focus and repetition compulsion, and there’s an unmistakable sadness in its pornographic luster. But as mise en scene it’s rich and accomplished–for better and for worse, a place to get lost in. Fine Arts. Read more
Though reasonably efficient on its own very simpleminded and cornball terms, this action thriller about the spread of a lethal virus from a monkey in Zaire to a small town in the American northwest is downright offensive when it comes to capriciously and irresponsibly converting certain aspects of the probable origins of AIDSas well as notions about the spread of any virusinto an occasion for light entertainment, bending the facts however it pleases. According to this movie, only one individual (doofus Dustin Hoffman) is capable of saving humanity from the plague, and only one meanie in the army (hulking Donald Sutherland) is responsible for endangering our survival; thanks a lot, guys, for clarifying all the issues so precisely. With Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Patrick Dempsey, and Kevin Spacey; directed by Wolfgang Petersen from a script by Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool. (JR) Read more
Appropriately and suggestively, the title of Francoise Romand’s first feature (1994), based on Frederic Dard’s thriller The Executioner Weeps, translates as “Past Imperfect.” Like her inventive documentaries Mix-Up and Call Me Madame, it deals with the construction of personal identity. On the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia a gloomy Jewish war photographer fleeing his past saves the life of a mysterious woman suffering from amnesia and carrying $300,000 (Helas pour moi’s heroine, Laurence Masliah). In helping her discover who she is and how she came by the money, he enters a metaphysical labyrinth that produces more questions than answers. This movie doesn’t offer many of the satisfactions of a conventional thriller, and the action flags a bit toward the end, but it’s a provocative, troubling, and haunting spellbinder just the same, beautifully shot and originally conceived. The sound track is especially striking. Romand will be present to discuss the film at all three screenings. A U.S. premiere. Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Friday and Saturday, March 3 and 4, 8:00, and Sunday, March 5, 6:00, 443-3737. Read more
The world premiere of an engrossing two-hour video documentary portrait by Chicago filmmaker Denis Mueller, who will be present at the screening. A hatchet job, though a convincing one, this compilation of intelligent talking heads and fascinating archival footage documents Hoover’s behind-the-scenes involvement in major historical events and wisely eschews such personal matters as his closet homosexuality to concentrate on the illegality of many of his investigative methods and procedures–a litany of abuses ranging from blackmail to embezzlement and beyond. Little of the indictment is new, but as a lucid survey and historical refresher course this is essential viewing. Kino-Eye Cinema at Chicago Filmmakers, 1543 W. Divison, Friday, March 3, 7:30, 384-5533. Read more
I didn’t last to the end of this 1994 Chilean political thriller when it showed last month at the Berlin film festival, but perhaps it got better. It’s about a man who accidentally runs into someone who 30 years before, as a fellow concentration-camp guard, ordered him to torture and kill war prisoners. Directed by Gonzalo Justiniano (Toffee or Mint); with Julio Jung and Pedro Vicu Read more
Pauly Shore plays a jobless goof-off serving on a jury who insists on prolonging the deliberations, so he can remain in the hotel where he’s sequestered until his mother (Shelley Winters) and her fiance return from Las Vegas. (The other jurors have junky rooms, but he finesses an opulent suite by sneaking a plug for the hotel onto prime time TV.) Connoisseurs of inept direction a la Edward D. Wood Jr. should probably make a beeline to this stinker: TV veteran John Fortenberry doesn’t even have Wood’s sincerity or personality to help him plow through the sludge. Written by Neil Tolkin, Barbara Williams, and Samantha Adams with a cynical eye on (though nary a thought about) the O.J. Simpson trial, which was just getting started when the film went into production, this is simply another dumber-than-thou comedy designed to make white teenagers feel as fashionably marginal as everybody else. With Tia Carrere (appallingly wasted), Stanley Tucci, Brian Doyle-Murray, Abe Vigoda, Charles Napier, Richard Edson, and an uncredited Andrew Dice Claythe only member of the cast who seems right at home. (JR) Read more
A highly ascetic, probing re-creation by Italian filmmaker Paolo Benvenuti (1992) of a historical incident that occurred in Rome in 1736. Arrested for burglary, two Jewish men are tortured until they confess, and then are condemned by the papal court to death by hanging. But the church feels obliged to convert them before carrying out its sentence, and the Confortorio, an ecclesiastic brotherhood in charge of performing the last rites, unsuccessfully devotes an entire night to this end. Based on extensive historical research by Simona Foa, this picture occasionally suggests some of the efforts of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet, at least in its severity and concentrationa specifically European seriousness in unpacking the historical past. With Emidio Simini and Franco Pistoni. (JR) Read more
The 1994 conclusion of Kirk Wong’s crime trilogy (preceded by Crime Story and Organized Crime & Triad Bureau) is set in Shenzhen, a sort of industrial suburb of Hong Kong on the border of mainland China. It’s a visually striking if stylistically mechanical and thematically routine police procedural whose short takes, frequent camera movements, and approximate lip sync all recall music videos, though the frenetic action keeps this somewhat livelier. With Anthony Wong, Wu Hsing-kuo, and Carrie Ng. (JR) Read more
Made in 1989 but apparently first released in 1991, this remarkable if extremely upsetting and gory black-and-white experimental feature by E. Elias Merhige doesn’t have any dialogue and lacks a plot or even a series of actions one can easily follow. But what you can make out is so horrific you may not want to know more. Working with filters and rephotographing his original footage in various ways, Merhige reportedly devoted ten hours of work to processing each minute of this 78-minute film, and the sheer otherworldliness of the grainy, overexposed images is hard to forget. Evoking Alexander Sokurov and Francis Bacon as well as early David Lynch and a great many splatter films, the medieval, allegorical plot begins with a figure identified as God in the credits eviscerating himself; an Eve figure emerges from his entrails and inseminates herself with his corpse, and she and the resultant child wind up on a pilgrimage leading to further gore, pain, and devastation when they encounter a nomadic tribe. If you’re squeamish you should avoid this like the plague; others may find it hard to shake off the artistry and originality of this visionary effort. And if you’re looking to be freaked out you shouldn’t pass it up. Read more
An impressive if rather unnerving first feature by Lodge Kerrigan (1993), this low-budget independent effort charts the journey of a schizophrenic (Peter Greene) back to his hometown, where he hopes to find his daughter. Shot over a two-year period and skirting experimental filmmaking with its carefully fashioned sounds and images, this creepy picture isn’t for everyone, but those looking for something different should definitely check it out. (JR) Read more
An amiable, partially contrived documentary by Mika Kaurismaki (1994) in which Jim Jarmusch joins Sam Fuller as Fuller returns to a Brazilian rain forest where 40 years earlier he scouted locations and shot 16-millimeter footage for a Hollywood adventure story that was never made. What keeps this fun and watchable is Fuller and Jarmusch holding forth for the camera and each other, but the settings and the Karaja Indians they visit hold plenty of fascination as well. Winner of the international critics’ award at the Berlin film festival. (JR) Read more
The first feature (1955) of Nelson Pereira Dos Santos, the father of cinema novo, this gritty neorealist film about five slum children is one of the essential works of the Brazilian cinema; highly recommended. (JR) Read more
A monster hit in its native Australia, this vulgar, crowd-pleasing comedy (1994) follows a gauche secretarial school graduate from a town named Porpoise Spit as she sets off for Sydney to find a wedding dress and a husband. A first feature by writer-director P.J. Hogan, it was produced by his wife, Jocelyn Moorhouse, the director of Proof, but don’t expect to find any of the conceptual purity of that film here. Oscillating back and forth between insulting its two central characters (Muriel and her dad) and showing they have hidden depths, this movie only shows true tact and understanding when it comes to flattering the audience; everyone on-screen is strictly up for grabs. With Toni Collette, Bill Hunter, Rachel Griffiths, Jeanie Drynan, and Gennie Nevinson. 105 min. (JR) Read more
