Short Subjectives October 23 2003

Capsule reviews of films by CL critics



?Opening Friday
BEYOND BORDERS Image Image (R) With a title that sounds like a Barnes & Noble commercial, this failed attempt to revive the old-style romantic epic is equally unsuccessful as an infomercial for refugee aid organizations, since it shows ways in which these charities are compromised. Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen are torn between their love for each other and their love of helping refugees (she has a husband, too, but he hardly figures into the equation) over 11 years of danger-filled meetings in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Chechnya. If not for the grim reality of the backdrops, Beyond Borders would be laughable. --Steve Warren

THE HOLY LAND Image Image Image (NR) See review at right.

RADIO Image Image (PG) Like Remember the Titans but less memorable, this fact-based story depicts a do-gooder high school football coach (Ed Harris) as he fights prejudice in a Southern town in the 1970s. The issue isn’t race but retardation as the coach helps a young man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) by making him a combination of tackling dummy and mascot beloved by football fans in South Carolina. The manipulative script will draw the desired reactions from the easily moved. --SW

SCARY MOVIE 3 (PG-13) With its PG-13 rating, the third in the series of horror spoofs promises to be less raunchy than its dirty-minded predecessors as it lampoons recent horror films such as The Others, The Ring and Signs. The trailer includes a few genuine laughs, like crop circles that read “Attack Here.”

SYLVIA Image Image (R) See review on page 68.

?Duly Noted
A BUNDLE OF JOY (2000) (NR) A beautiful young woman throws a small town into disarray by meeting many suitors — and then blackmailing them. Recent Films from Germany. Oct. 29, 7 p.m. Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, 1197 Peachtree St., Colony Square. $4. 404-892-2388.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) Image Image Image (R) An aging slacker (Jeff Bridges) and his bowling buddies (John Goodman, Steve Buscemi) become embroiled in a kidnapping plot among Los Angeles’ rich and decadent. For their follow-up to the Oscar-winning Fargo, the Coen Brothers seem to have emptied their notebooks of amusing one-liners and weird images for a finished product that’s well-polished but aggressively inconsequential. Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, midnight. Lefont Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon, 404-873-1939. www.lefonttheaters.com --Curt Holman

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995) Image Image Image Image (R) Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who helmed Amelie) and Marc Caro (who didn’t) co-direct this engrossing, eccentric fantasy about a wicked scientist who steals the dreams of children. With a plot that includes sideshow strongmen, squabbling clones, brains in jars and phantasmagoric sets, it plays like a blend of Tim Burton, Fellini and Charles Dickens. Oct. 24-25, midnight, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. --CH

THE CITY OF NO LIMITS (2002) (NR) In this tense drama, the son of a dying businessman investigates his father’s incoherent ramblings about a plot against someone named “Rancel.” Latin American Film Festival. Oct. 25, 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org and Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m., Madstone Theaters Parkside.

FRIDAY NIGHT (NR) French director Claire Denis presents a nearly wordless film about an anonymous sexual encounter that serves as a study in sensuality. Oct. 23, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565.

DEAD ALIVE (1992) Image Image Image Image (R) Before Peter Jackson achieved cinematic respectability with The Lord of the Rings, he made playful, nastily inventive flicks like this one, in which a milquetoast faces his Oedipal issues when his domineering mother becomes a ravenous zombie. The film’s slapstick suggests Laurel and Hardy with stray body parts, making Dead Alive the funniest gorefest — or maybe the goriest laughfest — ever made. Beware the cannibal baby. Oct. 24, 10 p.m. and Oct. 25, 8 p.m. Madstone Theaters Parkside, 5920 Roswell Road. 404-252-2000. www.madstonetheaters.com --CH

GIVE ME POWER (NR) In this hip, timely comedy set in crime-ridden Mexico City, a struggling filmmaker uses his camera to take the law into his own hands. Latin American Film Festival. Oct. 24, 5 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

THE LAST TRAIN (2002) (NR) In Uruguay, three retired railroad workers and an 8-year-old boy become folk heroes when they steal a historic steam engine before it’s sold to Hollywood. Latin American Film Festival. Oct. 22, 7:30 p.m., Madstone Theaters Parkside. www.high.org.

LIGHT OF MY EYES (NR) IMAGE Film and Video Center presents the Venice Film Festival’s Best Actor and Actress award-winner, in which a directionless man and a single mother turn to each other for help and love. Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m., Madstone Theaters Parkside, 5920 Roswell Road. $8 ($5 for Madstone and IMAGE members). 404-352-4225. www.imagefv.org.

MOVIES WITHOUT CAMERAS (NR) Eyedrum presents an evening of hand-drawn, animated and other short films made without the use of cameras, including “Hojas de Maiz” by Eric Theise and “Particle Chamber” by Oliver Smith. Oct. 29, 8:30 p.m. Eyedrum. 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. $3. 404-522-0655. www.eyedrum.org.

NOSFERATU (1922) Image Image Image Image Image (NR) For decades filmmakers have imitated and paid homage to this silent version of the Dracula story, but Max Schreck’s grotesque vampire and F.W. Murnau’s haunting, expressionistic direction have never been surpassed. This presentation features live accompaniment from Ron Carter, who will perform on an Allen Renaissance digital theatrical organ, as well as the Callanwolde Aeolian organ. Oct. 26, 6 p.m. Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, 980 Briarcliff Road, $10. 404-872-5338. www.callanwolde.org --CH

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) (R) The cult classic of cult classics, the musical horror spoof follows an all-American couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) to the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a drag-queen/mad scientist from another galaxy. It’s all fun and games until Meatloaf gets killed. Dress as your favorite character and participate in this musical on acid. Midnight Fri. at Lefont Plaza Theatre and Sat. at Marietta Star Cinema.

28 DAYS LATER Image Image Image Image (R) Trainspotting director Danny Boyle helms a stylish piece of schlock as a handful of normal humans contend with an epidemic that has turned England’s populace into raging berserkers. The last act’s detour into Lord of the Flies territory dilutes some of the film’s finely drawn tension, but it still proves a smart throwback to the end-of-the-world flicks of the 1970s. Oct. 24-30, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. --CH

?Continuing
CABIN FEVER Image Image Image (R) Five college students see their post-exams mountain getaway ruined by a pesky attack of the flesh-eating virus in Eli Roth’s first film, which benefits from a nasty sense of humor and a slow-burning mood of paranoia. Cabin Fever lacks the innovation of recent horror flicks like 28 Days Later or The Blair Witch Project, and the last 15 minutes fall apart even more completely than the dripping, disintegrating heroes, but Roth proves an attentive student of early Sam Raimi and David Cronenberg. --CH

CASA DE LOS BABYS Image Image Image (R) In an unnamed Latin American country, six women (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daryl Hannah, Marcia Gay Harden, Susan Lynch, Mary Steenburgen and Lili Taylor) wait to adopt a baby at the local orphanage. As always, indie auteur John Sayles takes a sensitive, intellectual approach to his subject matter, exploring the cruel economic imbalance between needy American mothers and their more desperate Latina counterparts. But Sayles also indulges in a trademark tendency to emphasize social commentary over character development and bite off too much material for one film. --Felicia Feaster

DUPLEX Image Image Image (PG-13) Danny DeVito is a sick, twisted, evil little man - my kind of guy. In the same (mean) spirit as Throw Momma from the Train, his live-action Road Runner cartoon pits a yuppie couple (Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore) against the “sweet little old lady” (Eileen Essell) who lives upstairs in their Brooklyn duplex. As she drives them crazy they try everything, up to and including murder, to get rid of her. Ask Miramax why they kept this gut-buster on the shelf for over a year. --SW

GIGANTIC: A TALE OF TWO JOHNS Image Image Image (NR) A.J. Schnack directs a documentary valentine to They Might Be Giants, tracing the quirky alterna-pop band from its origins in Manhattan’s post-punk performance art scene to its current presence on the Internet and hip soundtracks. The film nicely captures the almost frictionless creative dynamic between accordionist/poet John Linnell and guitarist/showman John Flansburgh. But it relies too heavily on interviewees like Sarah Vowell and its own ironic stunts, rather than letting the band’s videos and songs like “Don’t Let’s Start” speak for themselves. --CH

GOOD BOY! (PG) A dog from outer space befriends a human boy and marshals terrestrial canines in this family film featuring the voices of Matthew Broderick, Carl Reiner and Vanessa Redgrave.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD (R) If you enjoy shooting zombies in the House of the Dead video game, maybe you’ll like watching actors shoot zombies in this big-screen adaptation that includes such character actors as Clint Howard and Jurgen Prochnow.

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (PG-13) Image Image Image Image A darker than average date movie involving a white-hot divorce lawyer (George Clooney), a gold-digging vixen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and their tangled up relationship, mixed parts revenge and romance. The Coen Brothers (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?) keep the dialogue fast and furious, and make some fascinating Julius Caesar allusions along the way, but falter when they back off from the black humor. --Tray Butler

KILL BILL VOLUME 1 Image Image Image (R) Quentin Tarantino’s geek side returns with a vengeance in the first half of his loving yet overblown salute to kung fu movies and other cult revenge flicks. A blonde assassin (Uma Thurman) tracks down the former colleagues who betrayed her, and while Tarantino strives for the grandiosity of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, he undercuts himself with ironic jokes closer to McG’s Charlie’s Angels. It’s up to Uma to carry the film — and she does, conveying a toughness oddly comparable to Lee Marvin. Volume 2 is due in February. --CH

LOST IN TRANSLATION Image Image Image Image (R) Director Sofia Coppola’s (The Virgin Suicides) much-anticipated second film brings together Bill Murray and indie flick ingénue Scarlett Johansson as accidental tourists in Tokyo. Both insomniacs at crisis points in their marriages, the two start a unique friendship that takes through from karaoke clubs to titty bars in a soft-focus search for connection and meaning. Coppola strings together enough tiny brilliant moments to overcome the film’s nearly absent plot and produces a sophomore effort almost as sparkling as her first. --TB

MAMBO ITALIANO Image Image Image (R) Paul Sorvino and Ginette Reno anchor a stereotypical Italian-Canadian family in a gay rewrite of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Their 27-year-old son Angelo (Luke Kirby) moves out and sets up housekeeping with Nino (Peter Miller), a cop who’s not as ready to be out as Angelo is. This formulaic feel-good movie relies too heavily on stereotypes, but has more going for it than that. All pasta sauces use the same ingredients but some cooks combine them better than others. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. --SW

MYSTIC RIVER Image Image Image (R) A continuation of the fixations with masculine strength, vengeance and the violent extremes that have defined Clint Eastwood’s directorial and acting career. Sean Penn, a vast improvement on Eastwood’s typically wooden action heroes, is a grieving father determined to punish whoever murdered his 19-year-old daughter. Eastwood’s emotionally fraught film is hardly the masterpiece it’s been made out to be, often weighed down by a ponderous, conventional police investigation plot and a tendency to spell out his aims in canned dialogue and elementary exposition. But as a sustained treatment of male grief and insight into Eastwood’s auteurist fixations, Mystic River is undeniably fascinating. --FF

OUT OF TIME Image Image Image (PG-13) Director Carl Franklin returns to his One False Move roots for this neo-noir that never rises above the status of an enjoyable popcorn movie, despite beautiful widescreen cinematography and Denzel Washington’s star turn as a Florida police chief who becomes the chief patsy in a double homicide. As Denzel’s estranged wife and mistress respectively, Eva Mendes and Sanaa Lathan affirm their readiness for full leading lady status. --SW

RUNAWAY JURY Image Image Image (PG-13) Gary Fleder’s rapid direction of this John Grisham adaptation carries you over the plot holes as “jury consultant” Gene hackman helps defend a gun manufactrer against Dustin Hoffman’s prosecution of a wrongful death sit. Rachel Weisz promises to sell the jury to the highest bidder and John Cusack’s on the panel to make it happen. Contrived action scenes are there because movie audiences are no more interested in principles than gun manufactrers are. --SW

THE RUNDOWN Image Image Image (PG-13) This sadistic but fun flick with surprisingly coherent action sequences introduces a new action-comedy team in The Rock and Seann William Scott. The Rock seeks to bring Scott back from South America, where he’s searching for a golden artifact that could also buy the locals’ freedom from ugly (but funny) American Christopher Walken. It’s brutal, it’s loopy and you have to be sick to enjoy it... as much as I did. --SW

THE SCHOOL OF ROCK Image Image Image Image (PG-13) As fraudulent substitute teacher Dewey Finn, Jack Black offers an endlessly hilarious, PG-13 version of his Tenacious D persona, a posturing, legend-in-his-own-mind rock star. When Dewey teaches his class of private school fifth-graders how to be head-bangers, School of Rock takes the mush-mouthed clichés of a zillion “underdog” movies and cranks them up to 11. With Slacker director Richard Linklater and Chuck & Buck actor/scripter Mike White, Black offers the kind of formula film that gives the formula a good name. --CH

THE STATION AGENT Image Image Image Image (R) Director Thomas McCarthy debuts with a low-key charmer about a train-obsessed dwarf named Fin (Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train depot in rural New Jersey and makes it into his new home. The reclusive Fin is befriended by a local hot dog stand owner Joe (Bobby Cannavale) and a grieving, tragedy-plagued artist Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) and the trio form their own band of outsiders. McCarthy adds his own unique retro-loving, idiosyncratic outsider to the Jim Jarmusch and Hal Hartley indie oeuvre. But in this case, Fin is more than a rebel by choice and his inescapable physical difference adds a poignancy to the film’s quirky sensibility. --FF

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE Image Image Image Image (R) It’s less a remake and more a retelling, but still an intense, well-executed horror experience. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original sacrificed reality after about an hour to descend into pure, gruesome insanity, but this version remains anchored in the plausible. The sexy teenage protagonists have relatively complex moral decisions and chainsaw-wielding “Leatherface” has an identity and back-story. There’s a lot of slashing, chasing and crazy violence, but it still makes sense. --Steve Yockey

THIRTEEN Image Image Image Image (R) Former production designer Catherine Hardwicke makes her impressive, volatile directorial debut in this girl-focused anti-Kids focused upon the complex relationships that back-drop teenage self-destruction. This lacerating, powerful tale of a good girl (Evan Rachel Wood)’s descent into drugs, sex, shoplifting and self-mutilation under the faster-pussycat guidance of wild girl Evie (Nikki Reed) was based on Reed’s own damaged California childhood in the fast lane. Hardwicke’s smart direction gives it a sense of social urgency. --FF

VERONICA GUERIN Image Image (R) Ireland’s crusading, martyred muckraker (played by Cate Blanchett) gets a Hollywood-sized biopic thanks to blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher. While Guerin’s reportage on Dublin’s drug lords leads to moments of high intensity, the film never adequately examines the journalist’s willingness to endanger herself and her family in pursuit of the story, and instead portrays her as a garden-variety boat-rocker. --CH

WONDERLAND Image Image (R) For those who are still losing sleep over the 1981 murders of four drug dealing associates in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon — a crime in which porn star John Holmes was implicated — James Cox has your film. Wonderland is an unnecessarily thorough, Rashomon-styled film examining this crime from myriad angles. Director Cox uses the hook of Holmes’ possible involvement to lure viewers into a film with very little to say about Holmes or his porn career but a lot of flash and bluster to disguise such gaping absences. --FF