A mainly disappointing 1996 entry from comedy writer-director Andrew Bergman, who seems to be overwhelmed by both the contractual power of Demi Moore and unsuitable material (a crime novel by Carl Hiaasen). Moore plays a former FBI clerk who takes up topless dancing to make enough money to regain custody of her little girl (Rumer Willis, Moore’s real-life daughter), but about the only intriguing character is a bouncer of ambiguous sexuality played by Ving Rhames. Everyone else seems both underimagined and overblown, including Robert Patrick as the stripper Read more
The relationship between a 25-year-old Parisian woman (Emmanuelle Beart), recently separated from her husband, and the septuagenarian former judge and businessman (Michel Serrault) she works for as a typist and editor is at the center of this masterful 1995 feature by French writer-director Claude Sautet, but what’s important here is less a matter of literal events than sexual and emotional undercurrents. Sautet (Cesar and Rosalie, Un coeur en hiver) is a septuagenarian himself, but there’s an admirable detachment and sense of balance in the way that he attends and responds to his title characters, not merely defining one through the eyes of the other. The results are seamless and profoundnovelistic in the best sense. With Jean-Hugues Anglade, Claire Nadeau, and Michael Lonsdale. (JR) Read more
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a federal marshal dedicated to the witness protection programin this case he’s protecting Vanessa Williamsin an enjoyably paranoid kick-ass adventure romp (1996) with some giddily hyperbolic action moments. Charles Russell (The Mask, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) directs a limited but serviceable script by Tony Puryear and Walon Green and puts costars James Caan, James Coburn, and Robert Pastorelli through predictable paces. Schwarzenegger and Williams are regarded as blocks of decor that occasionally emit dialogue when they’re not diving out of airplanes, fighting off alligators in Central Park, evading fancy weapons and explosions in Washington, D.C., and on the Baltimore docks, and carrying out elaborate impersonations to defeat the treasonous feds on their tail. A few of the set pieces are fussy or overly extended, but the rest is tolerable bone-crunching diversion. (JR) Read more
Roll over, Victor Hugo. This 1996 cartoon feature, based on Hugo’s 1831 Notre Dame de Paris, is surely one of Disney’s ugliest and least imaginative efforts. It’s especially unattractive in its fast editing and zooms. There’s a glib happy ending to replace the novel’s, a cute pipe-smoking goat, and politically correct positions on Gypsies and hunchbacksthough virtually no feeling for Paris or France, which might have interfered with all those commercial tie-ins. If your main aim is to find somewhere to park your kids, the familiar Disney formula is at your service. Among the voices used are those of Demi Moore, Tom Hulce, Kevin Kline, Jason Alexander, and Mary Wickes; Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise are the credited directors. (JR) Read more
Adapted from a successful play, this tense and effective 1992 Venezuelan political thriller follows the story of a nun who decides to shelter a fugitive from armed rebels during a civil war, the ambivalent cooperation she elicits from another nun, and the price they both have to pay for their courage. Directed with craft and discretion by Alejandro Saderman, the film sticks to the claustrophobic feeling I assume the original play had while conveying a detailed sense of the surrounding community, from mayor to bishop to shopkeeper. Wisely, Saderman veers away from close-ups when he wants certain dramatic points to register; indeed, many of the finest moments–most of them related to the performance of Veronica Oddo, who plays the more committed nun–transpire in long shots. Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, Friday, June 14, 7:00 and 9:00; Saturday and Sunday, June 15 and 16, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, and 9:00; and Monday through Thursday, June 17 through 20, 7:00 and 9:00; 281-4114. –Jonathan Rosenbaum Read more
An intriguing and arresting dark comedy (1995) from American independent writer-director Todd Solondz, who focuses on an 11-year-old misfit in New Jersey but refuses to sentimentalize her. It’s worth pondering whether Solondz goes out of his way to pile on her miseries, but this isn’t as obvious a skewering of what it means to be American, adolescent, and unloved as it may first appear; it’s also about the interactions of a twisted world we all live in. Winner of the grand jury prize at the Sundance film festival; with Heather Matarazzo, Victoria Davis, Christina Brucato, and Brendan Sexton Jr. (JR) Read more
This curious piece of work (1996) starring Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick has been passed off as a comedy, and I suppose I laughed a few times during the first third or so; but it coheres only as a vaguely homoerotic nightmare patterned loosely after Fatal Attraction, with suggestive notations on TV pathology. As such it’s a fairly interesting effortmuch more ambitious than most Carrey vehicles. Broderick plays an architect recently evicted by his girlfriend and getting settled in a new flat; the technician (Carrey) who sets him up with free cable turns out to be a lonely, psychopathic control freak who makes his life miserable. Ben Stiller directs Lou Holtz Jr.’s script with plenty of unsettling edge, and Carrey throws himself into his part as if it meant something. With Leslie Mann, George Segal, Diane Baker, and Jack Black. PG-13, 94 min. (JR) Read more
This 40-minute Omnimax infomercial for the rerelease of the Star Wars trilogy (it also features visual effects from Independence Day, Jumanji, and Kazaam) received major funding from the National Science Foundation, which probably only demonstrates what suckers we all are as taxpayers. It calls Star Wars a major turning point in special effects history, though I’d argue that 2001, a movie that dissolves the very notion of the special effect by placing it in the service of some higher artistry, was more important in that regard. (Georges Melies, rightly singled out here as the father of the special effect, had the same idea, though he’s condescended to and represented by a terrible print of one of his films.) If you believe that special effects should consist of nothing but explosions, animal stampedes, and the like (they’re done mainly with scale models) and like the idea of movies selling other movies, then this is probably your cup of tea. This movie also boasts a second remake of the climax of King Kong; it’s vastly inferior to both its predecessors, though it still provides an eyeful in Omnimax. (JR) Read more
If you haven’t overdosed on versions of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, here’s one that’s quite intelligent. It transfers the action to Wales, and is directed by Anthony Hopkins (who also plays Vanya) from an adaptation by Julian Mitchell. The performances are first-rate, though this is neither cinema nor theater in any interesting sense, much less literature. (It might qualify as television, but then why put it on the big screen?) Certainly a respectable directorial debut, but not one that registers as necessary. With Leslie Phillips, Kate Burton, Gawn Grainger, and Rhian Morgan. (JR) Read more
After years of filming abroad, Bernardo Bertolucci returned to Italyusing English dialogue primarilyto fashion a civilized, mellow, and generally graceful chamber piece (1996), literary in a good sense (and written by novelist Susan Minot), about a young American (Liv Tyler), the daughter of a deceased woman poet, who returns to a villa occupied by family friends in Tuscany hoping to lose her virginity and discover the identity of her father, two concerns the film regards as intimately intertwined. Switching cinematographers from standby Vittorio Storaro to Darius Khondji (Seven), Bertolucci seems less rhetorical and more assured than usual. Though the film tapers off a little toward the end, there’s a climactic scene of recognition between the heroine and her father that was one of the most exquisite pieces of acting I’d seen in ages. With Carlo Cecchi, Sinead Cusack, Jeremy Irons, Jean Marais, Donal McCann, D.W. Moffett, Stefania Sandrelli, and Rachel Weisz. 119 min. (JR) Read more
Michael Keaton plays a family man who’s so busy that he has to clone himself three times to get everything done. Harold Ramis of Groundhog Day directed this comedy fantasy, which is badly in need of Bill Murray (or, barring that, more interesting characters for Keaton to play). Based on a short story by Chris Miller, who collaborated on the script with Mary Hale, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel; Andie MacDowell costars. The special effects are impressive, but they don’t add up to a movie. (JR) Read more
This rarely screened 1958 gem about the mind of a contract killer is one of Martin Scorsese’s favorite thrillers, and it’s easy to see why. An existential hipster (Vince Edwards) coolly regards his work as a business to be carried out rather like Zen in the Art of Archery, until he’s thrown by a big-time assignment to rub out a woman who’s about to testify in court. Neither the screenwriter (Ben Simcoe) nor the director (Irving Lerner) ever acquired a big reputation, but here they achieved something singular and nearly perfectwith a memorable score performed on guitar, a lean, purposeful style, and a witty feeling for character, dialogue, and narrative ellipsis. Lucien Ballard did the black-and-white cinematography. 81 min. (JR) Read more
Seventy-five minutes of Claymation whimsy from England, made over the past decade by Aardman Animations. A good bit of this consists of cute animals with charming accents, though the 1995 Pib & Pog features warring toys and the kind of violence found in Death Becomes Her. My Baby Just Cares for Me (1987) stages a Nina Simone classic in a nightclub, and Early Bird (1993) is a rather droll rundown of the daily routine at a radio station. A little of this goes a long way, but the program certainly has its moments. The main animators are Gary Cureton, Lloyd Price, Peter Peake, and Bob Baker. (JR) Read more
A clunky but charming fantasy-adventure based on the Lee Falk comic strip, which has been around for six decades, with Billy Zane as the title hero. The dogged efforts of producers Robert Evans and Alan Ladd Jr. to conjugate Indiana Jones and Batman yields a big-budget movie that resembles an old-fashioned movie serial more than other blockbusters, for better and worse. Zane’s discomfort in his purple tights and mask reeks of 50s Z-budget shooting conditions, and I suspect kids will like this for precisely that reasonthe rest of us will conclude we’ve seen it all before. Written by Jeffrey Boam and directed by Simon Wincer; with Kristy Swanson, Treat Williams (as the snarling villain), and Catherine Zeta Jones. (JR) Read more
Andre Techine’s complex, haunting, and luminous 1993 film considers the complications of family love across three generations, especially the unrequited love between a middle-aged sister and brother (Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil), neurotic overachievers whose mother (Marthe Villalonga), an illiterate farm widow, is approaching death. A longtime disciple of Ingmar Bergman, Techine views intense emotions from the inside out, freely cutting between the reality and the fantasies of his characters in a way that suggests Persona; this is a movie about imponderables, which means that not everything about the characters is spelled out or sewn up by the end. All the actors are powerful (including Jean-Pierre Bouvier, Carmen Chaplin, and Deneuve’s daughter Chiara Mastroianni), but Deneuve’s performance is a revelation. Pascal Bonitzer — who has long collaborated with Jacques Rivette and Raul Ruiz — worked with Techine on the script. In French with subtitles. 127 min. (JR) Read more
