Bob-321 Reviews

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)

Pleasant but empty

[3/10 · 27 November 2003]

This movie starts at A and never quite reaches B. Its title promises far more than the film delivers. It's superficial and filled with the usual cliches of a story in which a guy questions his sexuality. The people are agreeable, even the obligatory flamboyant type. The lead (Kevin McKidd) overacts insofar as there's a reason for him to act at all. Simon Callow, playing a horny straight, is always worth watching, and he's by far the only reason to stay with the movie. However, the rubbish about his men's group "meditations" or whatever they are grows extremely tiresome in short order. They seem to have been thrown into the movie's mild mix in a misguided effort to vary the setting and non-stop inaction. The same comment applies to a really odd and unconvincing camping trip. Don't worry about pausing the tape so you can get a snack. Let the thing run; you won't miss anything. Hugo Weaving's character is superfluous. He appears in a sequence with one of the lesser leads and doesn't even meet the rest at all. The outcome of that sequence isn't explained, and Hugo's real estate dealings have nothing to do with the story. The movie is a total disappointment at the end, because there is no resolution. The thing simply fades out and we're sent to the closing credits. This is an interlude with no structure.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

He should have shot the writers.

[14 June 2003]

It's very difficult to discuss this terrible movie without giving away more of the story than a reviewer properly should. Maltin says it was panned when it first came out. That's readily understandable. He adds that it's since become a classic. That isn't. `Valance' is seriously flawed in almost every aspect, although the huge cast is filled with fine, familiar faces, John Ford regulars. Jimmy Stewart and Vera Miles are peerless. Lee Marvin is a marvelous sneering heavy. His villainy is never explained; he's just pure evil. He plays Liberty, by the way, and the originality of the name is one of the movie's few interesting points. The entire film is cast as a flashback, a clumsy device that accomplishes absolutely nothing. We're given a climactic – but amateurishly devised – flashback within the flashback. The story is a mishmash of several stillborn plot lines. An eastern tenderfoot (Stewart) in the Old West is befriended by a swaggering John Wayne, who of course has a heart of gold. There's an inevitable love triangle, assumed by the audience but never actually dramatized. There's an underdeveloped conflict between homesteaders and open-range cattlemen in a quest for statehood. The territory isn't named. Presumably it's Arizona, since a few fake saguaros are stuck here and there in the infrequent location shots. At one point, some lines are quoted from the Declaration of Independence, and Jefferson is named as the (principal) writer. But the quote is said to be from the Constitution. Superb research there. Even the splendid John Ford slips seriously in leading us to believe an important character has died when he hasn't. It's a flat-out error in direction, or perhaps – to be kind – an uncorrectable result of a last-minute rewrite. The inept cut that ends the `deathbed' scene only makes the mistake more obvious. Long before the welcome end of the film, so many artistic failures had accumulated that I found it hard to pay attention to the screen, despite the eminently talented people involved. The writers are not included in this group. It's generous not even to name them.

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

A classic with class

[10/10 · 21 February 2002]

If anyone wants to see an excellent movie made before the banner cinematic year of 1939, this would be a film to watch. It could hardly have gone wrong, with David O. Selznick as producer and John Cromwell as director. And a superlative cast of popular stalwarts, mostly from Hollywood's British colony. Ronald Colman is his usual smooth and accomplished self in a dual role, King Rupert (of some fictitious country) and look-alike Englishman Rudolph Rassendyll, very distant cousins. The scenes in which he faces himself onscreen – called `trick photography' then – are remarkable for the period. Lovely Madeleine Carroll plays a princess, betrothed to the king. Her equal in elegance and beauty wasn't seen on the screen again until Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews. Many critics have praised Douglas Fairbanks, jr, as a likeable rogue. He's very good, in an easy role. My applause goes to the two stars. The film is a glamorous combination of romance, spectacle and adventure. Don't even dream of realism; there was too much realism in ordinary life during most of the Thirties. This is a grand escape to a time and place that never were. If I had to pick a favorite scene in the film, it would be the famous entrance of Colman and Carroll into the coronation ball. The shot opens on the couple, walking fast, arm in arm, directly toward us. The camera pulls back and back and BACK until the grand staircase of the palace and the entire ballroom, filled with people, are revealed. Visually and technically, this single fluid shot is a stunning achievement. It shows us the creative work that could be done at the time, by hugely talented artists, long before the advent of zoom lenses and computer graphics. Elegance and class are not hallmarks of most current movies. `The Prisoner of Zenda' (1937) is a stylish and very satisfying example – a symbol, perhaps – of what escapist entertainment can be. And of what it could and should be, now and then, even today.

Atlantic (1929)

Barely afloat

[2/10 · 8 February 2002]

No movie with Madeleine Carroll in its cast could possibly be unwatchable. That said, I have to add that this British film comes close. The story takes place on board the `SS Atlantic' and it's loosely based on the `Titanic's' unfinished voyage. The word `unsinkable' is spoken, the liner strikes an iceberg, and we hear a heavenly choir sing `Nearer My God to Thee.' The doomed passengers eventually take over the anthem, in a clever bit of sound work. But the year of the film's release (1929) means that a modern viewer has to accept otherwise primitive sound and many of the acting conventions of silent films and the stage. These aren't problems. The film's major flaw is pacing, and pacing had been well developed in silents. However, if the dialog were delivered at a realistic speed, the movie's running time would be cut in half. The intended effect was drama (and clarity in a new medium), but the result unhappily is tiresome now. The film's structure is preposterously illogical and inept. Paradoxically, I found certain details of the editing quite modern in technique: fine, abrupt cuts from one area of the ship to another, sometimes even on sound effects. Although we're on board the `Atlantic' from the first shot, we were well over 4 minutes into the movie before I discovered that fact. There are long, intrusive musical passages by the ship's dance orchestra. (Entertaining, easy sound.) Personal stories are presented in an utterly uninvolving and unconvincing way. Don't even think of spectacle. The berg is a tiny thing and the exterior damage it does to the ship's hull is a minor dent. However, the scenes of passengers swarming into the lifeboats - clearly staged on a real liner, presumably tied up to a dock - generate great excitement. Other than the glorious Miss Carroll, these sequences are the film's only points of excellence. As the movie and the ship near their end, the screen goes totally black several times when the power generators begin to fail. Their last, eternal blackout is the end of the film, with a sunset/sunrise tacked on, a clumsy symbolic effect. `Atlantic' is a cinema curiosity. At best.

The Lot (1999–2001)

OK but oughta be better

[4 February 2002]

Great TV it ain't, but pleasant nostalgia TV it definitely is. I enjoyed the overdone allusions to Hollywood's past particularly for that reason: they were overdone, and fun. All the regulars were good. I refuse to comment on the point that "Remember WENN" was replaced by "The Lot," because there's room for superb apples and pretty good oranges on AMC. I'd like to see "The Lot" brought back in a sharper form, same regulars -- but with stronger and more vivid writing about the foibles of old-time Hollywood. And while I'm writing this communication -- AMC: KNOCK OFF THOSE IRRITATING COMMERCIAL BREAKS IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR PROGRAMS!! Otherwise you'll drive me to TCM.

Angela's Ashes (1999)

The last 45 minutes are worth it

[24 February 2001]

This film is superbly made but so unrelentingly dreary and disagreeable that it's hard to consider half of it as entertainment. I don't question for an instant that it gives us an accurate picture of life in Limerick, Ireland, in the late 1930s. It was, at least for the McCourt family, an existence filled with hunger, brutality, filth and sickness, superstition, ugliness and death. Frank McCourt's Pulitzer autobiography, the basis of the movie, is no doubt authentically filmed. Is there any hope for young Frankie? Not in Limerick in those times, no. Frankie's dream is not to cope or to change (who could?), but to escape. My feelings exactly. At the start, I honestly had trouble staying with the movie, despite its great artistry. The child actor Joe Breen, who plays young Frankie – and whose face appeared in the ads (bad choice) – is unappealing. The actor should create audience sympathy. (Roddy McDowall in `How Green Was My Valley.') Instead, his circumstances create it. He and his family go on mindlessly in a sea of muck. This first part of the film is too long by 20 minutes – brightened only by a fine performance by Robert Carlyle as Frankie's loving but no-good father. (Of course, shortening that section would have shortened his role.) The dreary points have been made and made and made. The last part of the film, when Michael Legge takes over as the older Frankie, suddenly becomes interesting. He, if no one else, is willing and able to DO something. Frankie as a teenager learns that there is more to life than he has seen so far – and he sets about to make a change. His goal is to get to America, and he's actually able to find a job to start him on his way. At last we have a character to hold onto, to pin our own hopes on, to cheer for. But it took far too long. We were never given a hint of this kid earlier. We'd had what seemed like hours of hopelessness. If it's solely by luck that he can leave, by good fortune appearing unexpectedly in the endless miseries of Limerick – luck was probably the only way out of that hellhole. Grab it, Frankie! Steal your chance! Get out any way you can. On that tub of a steamer, look up lovingly at the Statue of Liberty as you pass. You made it! Frank, I'm happy for you beyond measure. 7 stars out of 10

Cast Away (2000)

Excellent movie with BIG flaws

[18 January 2001]

This is an entertaining and visually stunning movie that has something terribly wrong with it. That something is inconsistency. I think both writer and director contributed to the good and the bad. Again and again, ideas of pure genius are mixed with unlikely – even irrational – points that are impossible to accept. For starters: could a Caucasian spend 4 years in the blazing sun of a tropical island and come away with crusted lips and no trace of sunburn? Not even a tan? Tom Hanks is good and likeable, as always. But he carries the picture only in the sense that for much of it no one else is onscreen. Although his role calls for him to do lots of unusual things, they're really script stunts, not acting. He needs that talent only sporadically. For me, the film's 3 big plusses are the plane crash, the photography and the story's conclusion. The crash at sea is seen wholly from inside the craft, from the passengers' point of view. (It's reminiscent of Hitchcock's masterful clipper crash in `Foreign Correspondent' 60 years earlier.) The photography by Don Burgess keeps us in precisely the right place every second. His camera is often at water level yet – thanks to digital work, I assume – there's never a drop on the lens. The movie ends in an ideal location and on a perfect note of indecision and nearly limitless possibilities. Among the film's best bits is Wilson, Tom's volley ball companion, whose loss is heartbreaking. For a good and skillful movie, however, far too many questions remain. The island's beach is littered with FedEx packages from the plane's cargo, yet it seems days before Tom even thinks to look in them for useful items. Why? (Eventually, nearly everything proves to be valuable.) He also takes too long to secure the inflatable life raft that got him from the crash site to the island. And once that's lost in an unsuccessful attempt to get away, ages pass before he even thinks of trying to BUILD some sort of escape craft. I just don't believe it. Among the dumber script flaws is Tom's toothache. With all the genuine crises facing a castaway, this affliction seems contrived and superfluous. But despite the irritating lapses in `Cast Away,' the splendid good points outweigh the clumsy ones, and best parts are unforgettable. 8 stars out of 10.

Gladiator (2000)

Big and very exciting, but ...

[7 January 2001]

This movie has lots to admire and little to like. Its many plusses – spectacle, beautiful photography, action galore, superb effects – create only sporadic involvement. Its popularity may be based on the fact that its defects are overwhelmed by its vast scope. But look behind the on-screen uproar: the hero is an empty symbol, the linear story goes straight as an arrow from event to event, and the tiny amount of real feeling (other than excitement) is introduced artificially. The music seems to belong with another film. Russell Crowe, as the gladiator, is more stolid than heroic. Acting honors go to Joaquin Phoenix as the evil Emperor Commodus. (Accent on the first syllable.) At the climax, the script soars completely out of control, creating the movie's single authentic surprise. The emperor, a deranged weakling, ensuring that he holds every conceivable unfair advantage, pits himself in the arena against Rome's greatest gladiator. Even the delusions of the real Commodus weren't quite that insane, and the vision of Phoenix vs Crowe in the Coliseum is outright ludicrous. Perhaps it isn't possible to make a epic of this scale that can create any emotion beyond a feeling of awe. Possibly many of the defects are in the genre, not in the movie itself. But by all means see it, revel in the spectacular images, and don't think about it too intensely.

Mission: Impossible II (2000)

Is action everything?

[19 November 2000]

This is an exciting and stylish movie with a thin plot. But who wants a plot? I was never a MI fan, but I know the answer to that question. There are so many inventive and jaw-dropping stunts that visual interest never slackens - and this point, after all, is the reason to enjoy the missions. Of course they're impossible, and so is nearly everything that happens in this movie. Tom Cruise (star and co-producer) knows exactly what he wants to do, and he does it extraordinarily well. We ignore any yen for realism: the fun comes from the impossibility of it all. Lots of racing and crashing cars, a joust on motorcycles (really), and all the preposterous but fascinating techno-rubbish that MI buffs love so much. There are also 4-5 of those tiresome trademark face-peels. They're technically well done, but the concept somehow exceeds impossibility. If that's possible. The movie is purely a series of exciting and climactic exploits. They don't build, they accumulate, like a scrapbook of heroism. Unhappily, there's no tour-de-force sequence here, such as the stunning chopper-in-the-Chunnel masterpiece in the first `MI.' Closest to it, for me, was a gratuitous but great rock-climbing adventure near the very beginning of the movie. It was filmed on the sheer red cliffs near Moab, Utah, and the DVD extra dealing with this piece is fascinating. Most of the disk extras, however, add up to a paean to Tom's skill and courage in doing much of his own stunt work. They're worth watching anyway, and a couple actually tell us a bit about the creation of some of the startling effects. But the movie takes itself very seriously. I'm about 80% sure that's a fault. Might it have been more fun if it had been less earnest? Would audiences enjoy a chance to grin now and then, to break up the sustained sense of awe? (Is awe a flaw?) Perhaps we'll find out in the next MI. PS: The last names of Thandie Newton's character are Nordhoff-Hall. Is this any more than an inappropriate tribute to the team of writers of pre-WW2 Pacific adventures -- like `The Hurricane'? 7 stars out of 10.

Erin Brockovich (2000)

Great lady, great story, great actress

[10 November 2000]

This is a fine movie based on the true story of a remarkable woman. She's not a crusader. In fact, at the opening of the story she can't even get a job. Through an accident, in which her car was hit by one that ran a red light, she goes after justice. Her own legal problems get her involved with a law firm run by Albert Finney, a great foil for this aggressive and independent lady. In his office, she stumbles upon evidence of a massive injustice committed by a utility company, and works alone to uncover the enormity of the crime. She discovers that in the town near the company's plant, people have grown sick – in some cases fatally – through the utility's criminal disposal of a carcinogen, contaminating their water. She learns the legal processes by which the sufferers can be compensated. By sheer willpower and persistence, she collects the affidavits needed to launch a class-action lawsuit. A `David and Goliath' parallel is pointed out in the dialog. As she learns, we learn. If this sounds academic, it emphatically is not. Erin, as splendidly played by Julia Roberts, is a dynamic personality, and the film is a detective story with suspense, excitement and humor. In fact, after tossing off a wisecrack about having used `sexual favors' (she didn't) to amass the hundreds of signatures needed, Julia delivers one of the funniest lines in the last five years of movies. Erin herself – now Erin Brockovich-Ellis, a popular name – appears briefly in the movie as a waitress. She also speaks as herself in one of the worthwhile DVD extras. Don't expect to find the Julia of that insipid um-er-um `Nothing Hill.' Her Erin is a wholly different woman, a heroine even greater than her own story.

The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

A Yard and a Half, Maybe

[3 November 2000]

In order to enjoy this movie, you have to take a very light view of rampant double-cross and senseless murder. Yet it has a number of funny bits, mostly thanks to Matthew Perry and director Jonathan Lynn. Perry plays a baffled dentist innocently caught up with rival mobs and competing hit men. Bruce Willis, one of the latter, is OK just doing his usual stolid tough-guy shtick. Perry is adept at pratfalls and amusing terror. It's actually his movie. His and the director's. Lynn does some very clever and funny things, and he knows it's not necessary to put wit in screaming headlines. He gives us Perry's night of passion (with Willis' wife) as only an opening kiss and – the next morning – a scene of overturned lamps and a picture askew on the wall. The script (Mitchell Kapner), however, is childish. When the bodies of two murdered gangsters are to be burned in a gasoline-soaked car, the inevitable reference is made to `dental records.' Well, Perry's a dentist. His effort to pull the teeth of a dead man and plug in substitutes is a total failure as entertainment. Near the end, a guy we've come to like is shot and killed for no plot reason whatever. It not only isn't necessary, it's a sickening jolt. The audience deserves better – here and through 90% of the movie. 3 stars out of 10.

American Psycho (2000)

Did He or Didn't He?

[24 October 2000]

I haven't read the novel by Bret Easton Ellis (no relation, thankfully), but now that I've watched the movie I feel the book might help. There's no possible way to figure out what director Mary Harron has put on the screen, and perhaps not even Mr. Ellis himself could explain it. Or Harron either, for that matter. Christian Bale plays a young, successful Wall Street executive whose cup of hate wildly runneth over, and he kills indiscriminately. Or does he? Are we only glimpsing his bloody and hideous fantasies? I tend to think the latter is the case, because he leaves a vast trail of bodies behind him and yet he continues to pursue his usual lifestyle and nobody suspects him of anything. Well, detective Willem Dafoe (completely wasted) thinks he may have been involved in the first real/false murder, but he disappears from the story early on. No one else pays any attention to the endless mayhem. Don't think for an instant that Harron has set up a Jekyll-and-Hyde character. Bale is 95% Mr. Hyde and yet none of his friends ever seems to wonder what's wrong with this weirdo. Unless, of course, he's imagining his own demeanor too. This is a continuing problem with the plot and with Harron's direction: has she any purpose other than to confuse? Is that a worthy goal for a director? The story reaches a peak of mindless misdirection in the case of a hooker who "needed surgery" after her first ugly encounter with the Bale character. They meet again. Does she run away screaming? Not in this movie. Once more he entices her with money and soon he gives her a check. A check? I burst out laughing. On another occasion, in his apartment, he sneaks up behind an unsuspecting female guest and has the muzzle of a monster gun within an inch of her skull. He's psyched himself up to kill -- but suddenly his phone rings. Several times. He freezes there, patiently waiting to hear the incoming message. Yes, I think we're definitely dealing with a disordered mind. Harron obviously loves gore -- real or imaginary -- and wallows in it throughout. Bale is a fine actor and deserves far better. If the movie poses the question, "Are these real or imaginary murders?" -- I don't have an answer. If they ARE real, the movie is inept beyond belief. But after spending two chaotic hours with this repellent thing, I think the American psycho should have considered adding director and writer to his hit list. Real or imaginary. 3 stars out of 10

The Mummy (1999)

Go with It

[22 October 2000]

This movie is great fun from beginning to end. It never takes itself seriously and the audience is only expected to go along with the excitement. In no way is it a remake of the 1932 horror classic. That early story is just a springboard to bigger and better entertainment. And infinitely more high-speed foolishness. "The Mummy" (1999) has its share of horror, and without gore. It also has action, adventure, comedy, suspense, villainy, visual beauty, a hero to cheer for and a heroine to die for. (But the hero doesn't.) The special effects by Industrial Light & Magic are terrific, although there may be one sandstorm illusion too many. But then, it's Egypt. Brendan Fraser is ideally cast: he's no longer the lovable simpleton of "George of the Jungle." He has the skill and the screen presence needed to be a fine mock-swashbuckler, always ready with the throwaway smart-a(leck) quip. Don't bother about holes in the plot; if there are any, no one cares. The film's purpose is to give its viewers a fun-filled interlude, and it succeeds on every level. Footnote: stay with it for the closing credits. All by themselves they're a triumph of goofy design. The movie is two hours of pure cinematic good times. 8 stars out of 10.

Mission to Mars (2000)

Mission Aborted

[18 October 2000]

This movie was made for anyone who will believe anything. If you like space fantasy, the producers seem to feel, you'll accept whatever they throw at you. And here they throw the klunkiest special effects, an inconceivably preposterous story and phony heroics that are an insult to the real men and women who work in the space program. Rover vehicles are shot at the wrong frames-per-second and skitter around like the toys they are. (That was one of the more convincing bits.) Inside the spacecraft, in the few genuine sequences of weightlessness, the astronauts look fine and are fun to watch. Except for one thing. No camera, beamed to viewers on earth, is aimed at them, and it's hard to believe that when they're en route to Mars on a rescue mission they're not well past frisking about just for their own enjoyment. In the more expansive, EVA weightless scenes, they look like unmoving dummies on invisible wires. On at least two occasions, supposedly trained and experienced astronauts venture for no reason into wholly unexpected and terrifying situations without taking any precautions whatsoever. They just blunder blindly on because the writers hope the audience will be intrigued. Every new surprise gets a well-earned laugh. I can only hope the film-makers involved in this thing attended theatrical screenings. Wouldn't it be great if there were no other people in the audience? They'd deserve what they got: an empty house and a really inept movie.

Keeping the Faith (2000)

Restored my Faith in Movies

[18 October 2000]

This is a funny, clever, completely entertaining movie about three likeable people. It was a pleasure to spend a couple of hours with them. That fact right there distinguishes this film from dozens of other current rental tapes/disks. Two boys and a girl are inseparable childhood friends, until the girl and her family move away. When the guys have grown up to be Ben Stiller and Edward Norton, the girl has become Jenna Elfman, a very busy businesswoman. She returns to find that Ben is now a rabbi and Ed a priest. She resumes her friendship with them, the threesome is restored, and romance inevitably appears. Don't think for a moment that the outcome is instantly predictable. It's not all that simple, and the complications provide much of the fun. The humor is mostly visual. The paired calamities of the two men at the outset of their professional careers are hilarious. The script by Stuart Blumberg, if not witty, is ingenious and very well crafted, filled with amusing solutions to realistic problems. The priest spills out his sad story to a magnificently sympathetic bartender (Brian George) whose own life, briefly summarized for Norton, would provide plots for 10 movies. My only complaint: I'd have liked more of Anne Bancroft, as Ben's mother. She's a long-time favorite. This was Ed Norton's first work as a director. The film is dedicated to his late mother, Robin. She was surely very proud of him, and this movie could only have made her still more so. 8/10 stars

Dogma (1999)

0 = "Dogma" = 0

[18 October 2000]

By exercising extraordinary willpower, I lasted 38 minutes into this incomprehensible mess. The idea that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were playing angels was intriguing, and when they were on the screen they were fun. Nice interplay. I understood all the words they and everyone else said, and the words may even have fit together into sentences. I'm not sure on that point. But I can say categorically that -- one by one -- the sentences were virtually meaningless. And as for having sentences mesh together into *dialog* -- don't be an idiot. The pointless jabber and the unconnected images added up to the biggest lapse of sense and consciousness since my last nap. Which was infinitely more entertaining. 0 points out of 10

Reindeer Games (2000)

Don't Play

[16 October 2000]

This movie is so ludicrous and so awful that it's hard to believe anyone could offer it as entertainment. There are good people in front of the camera: Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron and Gary Sinise in particular. Legendary John Frankenheimer directed. What went wrong? That question has an easy answer: Ehren Kruger's script. The film opens with a shot of a dead body dressed in a Santa Claus suit, crumpled on the hood of a car. Four more shots, each of a different dead guy -- all Santas -- come next. Doesn't that grab you? Then we see the words, "Six days before." Before? Right there the audience is given a clear warning, about a minute into the movie, that something's gone wrong already. The story begins when an ex-con (Affleck) gets involved in the robbery of an Indian casino in Michigan. The countless preposterous plot twists -- actually plot knots -- develop into a parade of implausibilities. The casino never has many patrons. Why would anyone want to rob a casino that doesn't do much business? Because there are absolutely tons of money in the office. Where did it come from? The most dishonest proprietor on earth can't amass a mother lode if little cash is coming in. At one point, the casino manager, beaten to a bloody pulp and clearly near death, abruptly leaps to his feet, grabs a gun and starts shooting in all directions. On at least 10 occasions, one or another of the movie's slimy psychos aims a gun in Affleck's face and could easily blow him away. Why doesn't that happen? Each time Kruger ingeniously comes up with a preposterous way out. Ben is also subjected to more kicks and beatings than even Sly or Arnold could survive. Every organ in his body would be ruptured. His face would be ground meat. Nothing about him suggests the superhero, yet at the end he has a bruised cheek, a small scratch and a boy-next-door grin. No aspect of this film makes a trace of sense. The ultimate shocker -- the revelation of who's behind all this idiocy -- is explained away so lamely that it earns only a contemptuous snicker. "Scream 3" is another Kruger triumph. Avoid "Games" and wait for "Scream 62." Maybe he'll have learned the plotting game by then.

The Skulls (2000)

Hypnotically Good

[14 October 2000]

This is an excellent film in every way. It aims high and it hits its marks with great skill. I can't say that about many movies I see these days. The creative lighting and exciting photography struck me first. "Hey, this is beautiful!" The script (by John Pogue) is so well written that the story simply unfolds interestingly and believably. Later analysis may tell you it's not flawless. But the real test of a good script is that during the movie the viewer stays attached to the story, and no single film-making aspect -- good or bad -- pulls you out of it for long. Every surprise, every twist of the plot here, made sense because they had been neatly set up in advance. No clumsy, distracting explanations were needed. The title may suggest gore or horror, but the movie doesn't fit either category. The Skulls is a secret society at "certain Ivy League colleges," with members (alumni) worldwide. Their goal is political leadership, and they're clearly evil and pretty powerful. Where does the story take place? The letter Y appears often. Once it covers a whole wall. Even Yale's Gothic architecture is suggested. I was sure it wasn't shot at Yale; the story's concept is a bit too lurid and no college is ever named as the setting. At one point I was lifted right out of my seat: "That's Dartmouth!" It's been a long time since I was a student there, but I knew that particular location. In the "Thanks" credits at the end, the University of Toronto is near the top of the list. "Dartmouth College" appears farther down. The Ivy League participated after all. The climax, I have to admit, *almost* strains credulity. A group of men in formal tails stages a duel -- with antique pistols, no less -- in broad daylight at a monument that must surely be a focal point of the campus. But it's unfair to describe this sequence so coldly, out of context. By this time in the film, the suspense is so great and the overall excellence so high, that it works. I believed it. This was the only right way for the film-makers to do it. "The Skulls" should be a textbook movie for any writer who needs to learn how to deal with the incredible and make us believe it. It follows two basic principles: (1) It achieves high standards of quality in all fields; and (2) It knows precisely what a discerning audience will accept. There isn't a single cheap shot in the story. It treats viewers like intelligent people who want to be entertained. And it entertains superbly from first frame to last.

8/10

Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Gilbert & Sullivan as Never Before

[13 October 2000]

This is writer-director Mike Leigh's thoroughly entertaining take on Gilbert and Sullivan's creation of their most famous operetta, "The Mikado." But it's also a splendid view of a time and place (1880s London), filled with rich details. These are not just the handsome sets and costumes. We've given a hilarious conversation on that unfamiliar and mystifying instrument, the telephone. There's a naughty musical performance in a bawdy house that's an absolute delight. This sequence alone was the reason why the film was given an R rating. Congratulations, Mike (or whoever), for not caving in to change the R. We see some of the creative and personal conflicts that the two principals suffered between a near-failure ("Princess Ida") and the triumph of "The Mikado." Historically significant as these points may be, it's far more fun to eavesdrop on the problems the operetta's cast have to deal with. Both an actor and an actress complain when they are not to be allowed to wear a corset during the performances. The first run-through of the lines is a chaotic mix of mispronunciations and omitted words, and it's a funny bit played very low-key. Several Japanese ladies are brought into rehearsals to instruct the trio of "Three Little Maids" in mincing steps and the use of the fan. Neither group speaks the other's language and there is no interpreter. The teachers haven't a clue about what's happening, no one learns anything, and the courteously headstrong Gilbert has his cast do precisely what he wanted in the first place. The movie, however, is too long by at least 20 minutes, perhaps more. Sequences that could have been cut, entertaining though they are, become obviously unnecessary when the audience realizes that the characters have already been nicely established and the story is standing still. But this is a film filled with brilliant set pieces, and what seems superfluous to one viewer may be a highlight to another.

Walking Across Egypt (1999)

Talk about Sleepers

[9 October 2000]

I'd never heard of this movie, but I like Ellen Burstyn very much and rented the disk because she was the star. A couple of hours later I had tears on my cheeks and the feeling that I'd seen a film made in earlier, simpler times. That's a compliment. It's the story of a sweet elderly lady (Burstyn) whose faith and trust reform a juvenile delinquent (the fine teenage actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas). OK, it's a corny plot and it's been done a thousand times. And maybe not every question is answered here. But there are many surprises -- small story twists that are clever, reasonable and satisfying. Countless details show expert writing and film-making. Besides the two stars, the cast includes some solid names: Harve Presnell, Gwen Verdon, Edward Herrmann, Judge Reinhold and Mark Hamill. The title comes from the old-fashioned expression, "I could no more do [something impossible] than I could walk across Egypt." Incredibly, the rural, moss-draped locations were all found "in and around the city of Orlando." Florida, that is. Don't look for the travel-agency Orlando. Just do yourself a favor. Relax, forget the frantic concepts that some recent movie s have made us think are essential, and give yourself to "Walking Across Egypt." A handsome film, a superb cast, a heart-warming story. We're not often handed so many pleasures in a single picture.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Intriguing, chaotic

[7 October 2000]

Did anyone else notice that not a single newcomer to 7-1/2 ever bumped his/her head on the low ceiling? Amazing. The plot has an ingenious and fascinating idea -- briefly inhabiting the mind of someone else -- but loses it in an "explanation" by Orson Bean that's out-and-out garbage. And superfluous. Don't explain it, just do it. Some great sequences, particularly Malkovich going into his own mind and seeing himself in everyone else. High point of the movie.