Like many children’s movies these days, this 1999 animated feature by writer-director Brad Bird (The Incredibles) is an E.T. spin-off, but it’s a very likable and imaginative one. Set in a small town in Maine in 1957, it features a nine-year-old hero and his friend, a 50-foot extraterrestrial robot with a big appetite for metal and a peaceful, playful nature that turns threatening only when the paranoia of grown-ups activates its destructive possibilities. Adapted by Tim McCanlies from the book The Iron Man by British poet Ted Hughes, this is enjoyable in part because of its flavorsome period ambience and its lively and satiric charactersespecially a beatnik sculptor and a government agent voiced respectively by Harry Connick Jr. and Christopher McDonaldthough its graphic and dramatic virtues are nothing to sneeze at either. Some of the other voices are furnished by Jennifer Aniston, Eli Marienthal, Vin Diesel, Cloris Leachman, John Mahoney, and M. Emmet Walsh. PG, 86 min. (JR) Read more
The impressive directorial debut of actress Joan Chen, who’s appeared in everything from Twin Peaks to The Last Emperor to Heaven and Earth. Adapted from the novella Tian Yu by Yan Geling, who collaborated with Chen on the screenplay, and filmed in Tibet, this feature has enraged mainland Chinese government officialsnot only because it was shot without an official permit but apparently also because its tragic plot gives such a dark portrait of the effects of the Cultural Revolution. The young title heroine, who like many others in her generation travels from a city to a remote part of China, winds up working with a horse trainer in Tibet, a solitary and stoic figure whose quiet love for her is the main focus of the story. Desperate after a spell to return to her native Chengdu, Xiu Xiu winds up sleeping with a series of men who she believes have influence on such state decisions. Exquisitely acted, and shot by Zhang Yimou cinematographer Lu Yuean impressive director in his own rightwith a sharp feeling for landscape, this is a powerful piece of filmmaking. (JR) Read more
Two teenage girls (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) touring the White House in the mid-70s stumble upon some secrets of Richard Nixon (Dan Hedaya) without realizing what they are, and when things snowball wind up as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Deep Throat informant. This is silly and shameless stuff that made me laugh quite a lot, in part because it provides the perfect antidote to the neo-Stalinist pomposity of Oliver Stone’s Nixon and glib self-importance of Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men. Andrew Fleming (Threesome, The Craft) , who directed from a script he wrote with Sheryl Longin, lacks the polish and pizzazz of Stone and Pakula, but arguably his notions about American politics are healthier and more earthbound than theirs; in his book, Nixon and Kissinger and Woodward and Bernstein are all deserving of ridicule. In some ways this is like Forrest Gump without the neocon trimmings, which for me makes it bracing and energizing, though younger viewers may not catch all the historical references. With Harry Shearer as G. Gordon Liddy, Saul Rubinek as Kissinger, and Teri Garr. (JR) Read more
A remake of the 1968 heist movie that starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, with Dunaway returning as the hero’s psychiatrist. This time Pierce Brosnan plays the gentleman thief, and he’s pursued by Rene Russowho depicts an insurance detective and all-around superwoman with so much sexy panache that she’s the main reason for seeing this movie. Too bad the script (by Alan R. Trustman, Leslie Dixon, and Kurt Wimmer) eventually demotes her in favor of Crown’s superior genius. John McTiernan (Die Hard, Die Hard With a Vengeance) directed and Denis Leary costars. Like the original, it’s highly enjoyable trash that probably needs the big screen in order to register as pop mythit may evaporate entirely on video. But the myth by now is slightly shopworn, and the older folks in the audience might get the most pleasure out of it. (JR) Read more
This charming adaptation of Son of Adam, the autobiography of British TV executive Sir Denis Forman, was left on the shelf for a while, and given that it’s a Miramax production it’s probably been tampered with. But though it fades fairly quickly from memory, it’s a pretty flavorsome portrait of an eccentric family in the Scottish Highlands, complete with a crotchety inventor-father (Colin Firth), a more practical mother (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), and lots of children and animals. Scripted by Simon Donald and reuniting the director (Hugh Hudson) and producer (David Puttnam) of Chariots of Fire, this registers as a class act to be enjoyed more for the performances and period decor than for the mise en scene. With Rosemary Harris, Irene Jacob, Tcheky Karyo, and Malcolm McDowell. (JR) Read more
New York City during the summer of 1977, with the Son of Sam serial killings providing a frame for (and backdrop to) the main action. This sprawling, highly ambitious film, adapted from a script by Michael Imperioli and Victor Colicchio, is the first in which director Spike Lee has concentrated almost exclusively on white characters (most of them Italian-American), and if his own cameo as a TV reporter is the least convincing performance, it nonetheless offers a succinct and fascinating summary of his complex relation to the story. Among the classic films echoed here are M (the tracking of a serial killer by everyone, including organized crime), the first half of Fury (the making of a lynch mob), and Lee’s own Do the Right Thing (a sizzling New York summer and what it does to people). Perhaps the most remarkable achievement is the lead performance of John Leguizamo as a hairdresser who epitomizes the sexual double standards the movie is designed to critique–it’s one of the most fascinating portraits of a proletarian lunkhead since Brando in On the Waterfront. Like most of Lee’s work, this movie bites off a lot more than it can possibly chew, and it bristles with the worst kind of New York provincialism. Read more
Terse, informative, and convincing, Ronit Bezalel’s half-hour video documents the eviction of longtime residents from Chicago’s mid-city ghetto due to what’s euphemistically called “city planning” (the city claims that these people will be able to move back into the area, but so far most of them haven’t been able to find affordable housing). The story is basically told by the people being uprooted, and the feel for the neighborhood and its history is what leaves the strongest impression; Bezalel and her cinematographer, Antonio Ferrera, are especially good in handling the closing down of a barbershop. A discussion will follow the screening. Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, Thursday, July 8, 6:30, 312-346-3278 or 773-728-1879. –Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): film still. Read more
Art teacher and former architect Patrick Keiller followed up his debut feature, London, with this 1997 film, and it’s equally worth seeing. Like the earlier film it’s a fictionalized documentary about contemporary England that at times suggests an anglicized Chris Marker. Paul Scofield narrates, playing the fictional hero’s sidekick and researcher. (JR) Read more
Andrew Kotting’s touching, personal 1997 documentary about his 6,000-mile journey along the coasts of England, Wales, and Scotland with his 90-year-old grandmother and his 7-year-old daughter, who suffers from the serious neurological disease Joubert’s syndrome. Far from depressing and often funny, this has as many quirky aspects as the films of Ross McElwee and manages to cover an interesting range of topics as well. (JR) Read more
Ace action director Don Siegel helmed this 1949 Robert Mitchum thriller, only 72 minutes long, with an almost continuous chase involving four sets of characters in Mexico, and it’s pretty damn good. Mitchum was hauled off to jail on a marijuana charge during the location shooting, but somehow Siegel managed to paper over the continuity problems. With Jane Greer and William Bendix. (JR) Read more
Two period pieces of anticommunist noir. Woman on Pier 13 (1950), which started out under the title I Married a Communist, was offered to various directors by RKO studio head Howard Hughes, who theorized that anyone turning down the assignment must be suspect. Unfortunately the movie itself, a standard and fairly unimaginative gangster film directed by Robert Stevenson, doesn’t live up to its legendary reputation, despite the presence of Robert Ryan. I probably haven’t seen Shack out on 101 since it came out in 1955, but judging by its castTerry Moore, Frank Lovejoy, Lee Marvin, and Keenan Wynnand its rock-bottom budget, it’s probably much more interesting. Edward Dein directed. (JR) Read more
This 1932 film, rarely screened nowadays, was adapted from the 1930 Broadway hit of the same name, the first play cowritten by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman; after purchasing the rights, Universal Studios chief Carl Laemmle was so proud of his largesse that he drafted a personal letter to the public introducing the film. A farce about the lunacy of Hollywood, it epitomizes the revenge of east-coast wits on west-coast illiteracy, and while some of the details have been softened or shaved away (notably, most of the third scene in act one has been deleted), the results are still much closer to the original than Frank Capra’s version of Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You. A trio of vaudevillianslunkhead Jack Oakie and lovers Aline MacMahon and Sidney Foxhead to Hollywood circa 1927, hoping to cash in on the talkies; the couple gets hired as vocal coaches, and Oakie winds up as a high-ranking director at the same studio. Russell Mack’s direction is fairly stagy and clunky, but it hardly matters: the satire is corrosively funny (even when it’s unfair). Zasu Pitts plays a dopey receptionist, and Gregory Ratoff is especially amusing as the central European studio head. Read more
The dazzling 1990 conclusion of Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s autobiographical Alexandria trilogy can be seen independently of the other two features; its writer-director stars as a famous filmmaker very much like himself, happily married but also smitten first with one of his young actors and then with a young actress he meets (Yousra). Yousra played Chahine’s wife in the second part of the trilogy, An Egyptian Story (1982), and the young actor in this film is based on Mohsen Mohiedine, who played Chahine as a young man in Alexandria, Why? Filmed in sumptuous color, this is not only one of the most passionate celebrations of bisexuality ever filmed, it’s also one of the funniest; Chahine’s tap-dance duet with his lead actor on a movie set is priceless. (JR) Read more
This 1978 film, the first feature in Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s fascinating and complex autobiographical trilogy about Alexandria, won the Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival. It’s set during World War II, when Rommel’s army is approaching the city and a youth who serves as a stand-in for Chahine (Mohsen Mohiedine) is undergoing crises of national identity, sexuality, and vocation. A terrific movie in many respects, though perhaps less of a revelation than the trilogy’s 1990 conclusion, Alexandria, Again and Always. (JR) Read more
By reputation an exemplary noir (1947) about a philanderer (Robert Young), with touches suggestive of both Hitchcock and James M. Cain. Irving Pichel directed a script by Jonathan Latimer; with Susan Hayward, Rita Johnson, Jane Greer, and Tom Powers. 95 min. (JR) Read more
