The entertaining if facile 1968 original was cowritten by Rod Serling, and though this fancy new version claims to be neither a remake nor a sequel, I’d call it the formerthough one that tries to reconfigure the various commercial elements (SF adventure story, satire, action, surprise ending) rather than duplicate them. The problem is that Serling was a liberal satirist and fabulist (as presumably was Pierre Boulle, author of the source novel Monkey Planet), while the gifts of Tim Burton are chiefly visual. Pictorially, this is sometimes wonderful (and some of the credit should go to production designer Rick Heinrichs). But as satire it’s toothless and at times close to incoherent; its predictable swipes are aimed equally at conservative racists and bleeding-heart liberals, and the screenplay by William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal doesn’t seem terribly invested in anything. The tone swerves between satire and straight-ahead action and frequently into bits of unintentional camp, such as the snorts and growls (complete with martial-arts flying and lots of pounding violence) of the simians, Charlton Heston’s cameo as a dying Yoda-type ape, and Estella Warren in cavegirl-jailbait attire that’s worthy of black-and-white 50s drive-in fodder. Even a few standard-issue explosions are folded into the mix, reminding us repeatedly that this isn’t so much a story as a set of attractions for kids. Read more
These days, most accounts of John Cassavetes’s work and career tend to be either uncomprehending dismissals, which often wrongly assume that his scripts were mainly improvised by his actors, or uncritical hagiography. At least the hagiography is better informed, and this is especially true of Charles Kiselyak’s 200-minute video documentary, finished last year–possibly the most complete look at the man we’ve had yet and much easier to follow than most of the books published about him. The narration is drawn from Cassavetes’s own words–a drawback as well as a plus, because sometimes he created as much confusion around his work as his detractors–but the biggest value of this chronicle lies in the interviews with most of the writer-director’s main actors, including Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, Seymour Cassel, Lelia Goldoni, and Lynn Carlin, who perceptively discuss their own performances and those of their colleagues. We even get some insights into Cassavetes’s theater work, from Jon Voight and Carol Kane, among others, and into his handling of music in his films–subjects that are usually neglected in other accounts. There’s also a generous supply of clips, many of which will mean a lot more to those who already know the films. To be shown on DigaBeta video as part of the Film Center’s ongoing Cassavetes retrospective. Read more
Overwritten by Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan, overdirected by Joe Roth, overplayed by most of the cast, yet typically undernourished, this would-be satirical comedy, about a movie-star couple who have broken up but must give interviews together to publicize their final movie, seems very vaguely inspired by the screwball comedies of the 30s. Among the usually efficient actors (including John Cusack, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Hank Azaria, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin), only Julia Roberts and Crystal himself (who also produced) emerge relatively unscathed. They appear to be acting in a different, more reasonable movie than the others. 100 min. (JR) Read more
From the Chicago Reader (July 10, 2001). — J.R.
Talent means nothing if you don’t make the right choices, says a middle-aged heist artist and Montreal jazz club owner (Robert De Niro) to his prickly young assistant (Ed Norton). These words of wisdom might have been heeded by the filmmakers — four credited writers, director Frank Oz, and undoubtedly countless others, including four producers — who have needlessly inflated a modest thriller into a top-heavy monolith of wasted secondary actors (Angela Bassett, Gary Farmer, and even to some extent Marlon Brando, who manages to give something approaching a real performance this time rather than a specialty cameo) and fussy details. John Huston (The Asphalt Jungle), Jules Dassin (Rififi), and Stanley Kubrick (The Killing), working on two separate continents in the 50s, with many more characters and shorter running times, did much better jobs with heist thrillers, perhaps because they were creating movies rather than packages. This one’s slightly better than average these days, which means slightly diverting. Howard Shore, who’s done fine work in the past for David Cronenberg, did the derivative pseudojazz score, and there are brief musical cameos by Cassandra Wilson and Mose Allison. Read more
The first English-language feature of Quebecois filmmaker Lea Pool (Set Me Free), this is nicely written as well as filmed, at least if one can tolerate an excessive and rhetorical use of slow motion. It focuses on a girl at a boarding school (Piper Perabo) whose roommate and lover (Jessica Pare) aggressively turns to boys, and on the viewpoint of a third roommate (Mischa Barton) who’s caught between the turmoil of both girls. It’s one sign of the film’s sensitivity that two of the adult characters, played by the inimitable Jackie Burroughs (a teacher) and Graham Greene (a gardener), are every bit as intense as the students. Written by Judith Thompson, who adapted Susan Swan’s novel The Wives of Bath. 100 min. (JR) Read more
This 1946 domestic epic about three World War II veterans returning to civilian life, 172 minutes long and winner of nine Oscars, isn’t considered hip nowadays. Its director, William Wyler, and literary source, MacKinlay Kantor’s novel Glory for Me (adapted here by Robert Sherwood), are far from fashionable, and the real veteran in the cast, Harold Russell, who lost his hands in the war, has occasioned outraged reflections from critic Robert Warshow about challenged masculinity and even sick jokes from humorist Terry Southern. But I’d call this the best American movie about returning soldiers I’ve ever seen — the most moving and the most deeply felt. It bears witness to its times and contemporaries like few other Hollywood features, and Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography is one of the best things he ever did. The rest of the cast — including Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Fredric March, Cathy O’Donnell, Virginia Mayo, Hoagy Carmichael, and Ray Collins — is strong too. (JR) Read more
This week Facets Multimedia Center kicks off a monthlong retrospective of work by the talented Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai (who will attend selected screenings Friday through Sunday). Pineapple (1983, 78 min.), a fascinating social history of the growing and processing of pineapple, extends back to 1898, when Sanford Dole became the first governor of Hawaii, and leaps geographically between the Dole headquarters in San Francisco, plantations in the Philippines, processing plants in Hawaii, and a wholly automated label-printing plant in Tokyo, contrasting the very different perceptions of management and workers. As in the subsequent Bangkok Bahrain, Gitai experiments with the sound track; here he concentrates on mixing discourses (particularly using a whispered chant and other kinds of music behind the various interviews), which reach a climactic cacophony in the final sequence. It’s an interesting and suggestive technique, though there are times when it becomes more distracting than illuminating. Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, Tuesday, July 10, 7:00 and 9:00, 773-281-4114.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum Read more
Facets Multimedia Center is screening these two documentaries by Israeli-born filmmaker Amos Gitai on successive days, and though I don’t like American Mythologies (1981, 104 min.) nearly as much as Field Diary (1982, 82 min.), when viewed as a pair they show that one can often maintain a sharper focus from the center than from the sidelines. American Mythologies, made around the time of the Iranian hostage crisis and Reagan’s rise to power, is accurately described by Gitai as a montage of visual and aural fragments which represent America for me: a very brutal society with a few people on its periphery trying to behave like human beings. The alienation implicit in that remark points to the film’s limited viewpoint, despite fascinating interviews with Jane Fonda (who poignantly swears that her political radicalization is irreversible), the head of programming for NBC, a fashion designer, a Native American woman, and various hippies. The powerful Field Diary, on the other handwhose negative reception in Israel ultimately played a role in Gitai moving to Franceis coherent both formally and thematically, in part because Gitai is intimately acquainted with his subjects: the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the invasion of Lebanon, and the ways violence against the Palestinians is ‘legitimised.’ Read more
This likable crowd pleaser (2000)nominated for an Oscar, and predictably trimmed by Miramax for North American consumptionis a good-natured Flemish comedy about a middle-aged factory worker (Josse De Pauw) who’s so eager to make his untalented teenage daughter (Eva Van Der Gucht) a famous recording artist that he kidnaps a pop star (Thekla Reuten) in a harebrained scheme to make the world take notice. This is the first feature I’ve seen by writer-director Dominique Deruddere, and I hope it won’t be the last. 97 min. (JR) Read more
Ma vie en rose, the debut feature by Belgian filmmaker Alain Berliner, was one of the most popular films shown at the 1997 Cannes film festival, a delightful comedy about a six-year-old boy who decides he wants to be a girl and the various kinds of consternation this produces in his family and community. Significantly, Berliner cites both Tim Burton and Ken Loach as influences; the Burton input is most apparent in the boy’s favorite TV show, a tacky, surreal fantasy with a Barbie-doll heroine that occasionally suggests Pee-wee’s Playhouse, as well as the Burton spin-off feature, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Rich in understanding and insight, this is some of the best Belgian filmmaking I’ve seen outside of Chantal Akerman’s, and it’s a good deal more accessible. 88 min. In French with subtitles. (JR) Read more
