New Releases
PRIME / SHOPGIRL It’s been duly noted that we hapless humans have to work hard at relationships, but the romances that exist at the center of two new releases operate at levels so beyond infuriating that they scarcely seem worth the trouble — for the characters or for audience members. It isn’t that these love stories are rarely believable — they aren’t, but what the hey, we’ve all been at the center of real-life encounters that would test the credulity of anyone not privy to all the details. Rather, it’s the manner in which the conflicts have been jerry-rigged in such movie-phony ways that it’s difficult to care one way or the other how everything will turn out. At least Prime boasts good performances by Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman as well as a few knowing laughs to ease the pain. Streep admirably underplays the role of the kvetchy Jewish mom, a therapist who’s distraught when she learns her 23-year-old son (so-so Bryan Greenberg) is dating one of her patients, a 37-year-old divorcee (Thurman). The stakes might seem greater if Greenberg’s character were stepping out with a woman played by, say, 70-year-old Judi Dench, but after a shaky start that promises a rehash of Monster-In-Law (please, God, no), the movie eventually finds its rhythm not so much in the expected spats between the lovers but in the genuine bond between the conflicted therapist and the damaged flower placed in her care. Streep and Thurman invest their characters with a great deal of passion, which is more than can be said for the zombies shuffling through Shopgirl. Claire Danes, stripped of anything resembling a personality, plays a Saks glove counter flunkie who’s so man-hungry she drapes herself all over an obnoxious slacker (Jason Schwartzman) whose idea of safe sex is to wrap a Ziploc baggie around his pecker before intercourse. When it appears this relationship won’t go anywhere, she next succumbs to the advances of a wealthy older gentleman (Steve Martin) who can buy her lots of pretty things but can’t commit emotionally. Shopgirl is based on Martin’s novella of the same name, and although he wrote it a couple of years before Lost In Translation came around, it’s obvious director Anand Tucker wants to capture the same air of melancholy and romantic yearning that distinguished Sofia Coppola’s exemplary film. Alas, the only thing lost in translation here is the point of this aimless, airless dud. Prime: HH 1/2 / Shopgirl: H 1/2
Current Releases
CAPOTE Anyone heading into Capote expecting an exhaustive expose on the literary lion and social raconteur might be disappointed to learn that this focuses exclusively on the period when he researched and wrote his nonfiction masterpiece In Cold Blood. In a way, it is an odd choice for a film: Almost everything you need to know about this incident — and, therefore, Capote’s viewpoint — can be found in Richard Brooks’ superb 1967 screen version of In Cold Blood. But the selling point is the excellent performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman: As much as Jamie Foxx channeled Ray Charles to such a degree that it was impossible to tell where the spirits of the two men separated, likewise does Hoffman tackle the persona of Truman Capote and make it his own. Constantly punctuating the air with his whispery wit and entertaining other people as if to the (diva) manner born, Capote is as original on screen as he was in real life. HHH
DOMINO By all appearances, Domino led a fascinating life: The daughter of English actor Laurence Harvey (The Manchurian Candidate), this tomboy quickly gave up the lifestyle of the rich and famous to forge her own path as a bounty hunter. That sounds like compelling material for a kick-ass biopic — for once, it seems that truth is stranger than fiction. But armed with a script Richard Kelly, director Tony Scott instead chooses to ignore many of the smaller details of Domino’s hard-scrabble existence to fashion an ugly and oft-times impenetrable action flick about a trio of bounty hunters. It’s Scott’s attempt to make a crime caper as tricked up as, say, Pulp Fiction or Get Shorty, but it’s an unholy mess, and it subjugates the character of Domino (played by Keira Knightley) to such a degree that she ultimately feels like a bit player in her own story. H
DOOM Stating that Doom is probably the best of the numerous flicks based on a video game ranks as the feeblest praise imaginable. It’s akin to noting that benign genital herpes is the best sexually transmitted disease to acquire, or that strawberry is the best tasting Schnapps flavor. Still, in a sub-sub-genre that has subjected us to the likes of Super Mario Bros. and Resident Evil, we’ll take our favors where we can get them. Doom rips off Aliens at every turn (at least its makers steal from the best), as a group of military grunts find themselves combating vicious creatures at a manned outpost in outer space. For a good while, director Andrzej Bartkowiak actually attempts to make a real movie rather than just a video game simulation, but eventually the movie runs out of creative steam and turns increasingly daffy. HH
DREAMER: INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY Taking a well-worn formula and adding some flavor through the rich characterizations of its leading players, Dreamer centers on the circumstances that transpire when horse trainer Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) and his young daughter Cale (Dakota Fanning) elect to nurse an injured race horse named Soñador (Spanish for Dreamer) back to health. Many child stars are either sloppily sentimental or coldly calculating, and while Fanning has occasionally veered toward the latter, she delivers her warmest and most natural performance in this picture. There’s a heartwarming family dynamic between father and daughter, and the scenes between Russell and Fanning are especially good — so memorable, in fact, that they almost make us forget that we’ve seen all this before. HH 1/2
ELIZABETHTOWN Always a personal filmmaker, Cameron Crowe here seeks to honor the memory of his father, who died of a heart attack in 1989. It’s a noble endeavor but a disappointing movie, as engaging individual scenes fail to disguise either the slackness or superficiality of the piece. Orlando Bloom, nothing special but getting the job done, stars as a failed shoe designer who temporarily shelves his own demons in order to attend his dad’s funeral back in the title Kentucky town; along the way, he meets a chatty flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) who stirs him out of his stupor. Too often, Crowe employs his personal CD collection in place of a story. Dunst is passable as Bloom’s kooky, life-loving confidante, though I preferred Natalie Portman in the role in the similar (and superior) Garden State. HH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK In his second stint as director, George Clooney (who also co-wrote and co-stars) looks at an inspiring moment in US history, when legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) did the unthinkable by standing up to Joe McCarthy, the Senator who was destroying lives left and right in his maniacal pursuit of Communist infiltrators. Clooney has his sights set, and the targets are all big game. Like All the President’s Men, the movie celebrates journalistic integrity in the face of political corruption, and like Quiz Show, it shows how this marvelous invention that has the ability to educate millions of Americans simultaneously has instead been dumbed down to placate the lowest common denominator (in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t take long for Edward R. Murrow to be replaced by Trading Spouses). Comparisons to the insidious Bush Administration abound, and Clooney decries the lack of modern-day media heroes who could compare with Murrow. HHH 1/2
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE A Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg here resembles nothing so much as one of his fellow countrymen glimpsed in Bowling for Columbine, gazing at our land across the lakes and wondering why we’re always so obsessed with carnage. In much the same manner that David Lynch deconstructed the myth of the squeaky-clean small Southern town in Blue Velvet, so too does Cronenberg take a hatchet to the façade of bland Midwestern homeliness. His protagonist is Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), a family man who becomes a national hero after killing two psychos in self-defense. But the exposure brings a stranger to town, a gruff mobster (menacing Ed Harris) who insists that Tom was once a homicidal kid back in Philadelphia. Cronenberg and scripter Josh Olson create a dizzying examination of this country’s love-hate affair with brutality, exploring numerous gray areas with the help of a powerhouse cast. HHH 1/2
IN HER SHOES An initially acrid look at sibling rivalry, this stars Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette as Maggie and Rose, two sisters who have nothing in common except their shoe size. After a falling out, irresponsible Maggie heads to Florida to meet the grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) she never knew, while insecure Rose remains in Philadelphia in an effort to get her own life back on track. It isn’t hard to guess how this will play out, but the pleasures rest in the journey more than the destination. Diaz and Collette are both excellent, though they’re effortlessly matched by MacLaine. Even when the movie surrounding her turns soft, this wily veteran remains its pillar of strength: Espousing tough love at every turn, she provides In Her Shoes with its own hard-won terms of endearment. HHH
THE LEGEND OF ZORRO Set approximately nine years after The Mask of Zorro, this sequel finds Don Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas) having trouble shedding his day job as Zorro in order to spend more time with his lovely wife Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and rambunctious young son Joaquin (Adrian Alonso). External pressures force the couple to split, with Alejandro drowning himself in booze and Elena taking up with a Frenchman (Rufus Sewell) who’s clearly up to no good. The presence of Anthony Hopkins (who played the original, aging Zorro in the first film) is sorely missed, but Banderas and Zeta-Jones remain a sexy and spirited screen couple. Their fiery passion, combined with some solid action scenes, results in an undemanding good time. HHH
NORTH COUNTRY North Country is loosely based on a true story, and it’d be interesting if transcripts from the actual trials surrounding this tale were made available at the film’s screenings. That way, we could see for ourselves if the courtroom shenanigans were really as difficult to swallow as the ones that conclude this film. Up until this point, North Country works fairly well as a raging polemic against sexual harassment in the workplace, with Charlize Theron cast as a single mom whose cruel treatment at the hands of her male co-workers at the mining company leads her to take the outfit to court. The film is worth catching for its important issues and Theron’s galvanizing performance, but when it comes to sticking up for its shameless last-minute theatrics, the defense rests. HH 1/2
STAY Don’t they mean Stay Away? After all, Stay is a pretty ironic title for a film that will be hard-pressed to keep audience members in their seats for even 15 of its pretentious minutes. Skewing closer to tripe like The Butterfly Effect and The Jacket than twisty gems such as Memento and Mulholland Drive, this movie mind-bender stars Ewan McGregor as a psychiatrist who experiences strange visions as he attempts to help a suicidal patient (Ryan Gosling). Even if the mystery at the center of Stay wasn’t fairly obvious from the get-go, it isn’t enough for a movie to simply play a game of “Gotcha!” with viewers — there has to be an internal logic at work at all times, as well as a sense that something’s truly at stake. Stay fails on both counts, though film students might at least derive some pleasure from the movie’s technical exuberance (it’s like an experimental student film gone wild). H 1/2
TWO FOR THE MONEY Al Pacino’s back in full manic mode in this malnourished morality tale not dissimilar in structure to other Pacino vehicles in which he serves as a shady mentor to a hot young actor (The Devil’s Advocate, The Recruit, etc.). He plays Walter Abrams, the head of a sports consulting firm who finds his protégé in Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey), a naïve guy with a near-psychic ability to accurately handicap gridiron match-ups. Brandon’s picks make both men rich, but personality conflicts threaten to derail their careers. The film’s entertainment value can be found in its incoherence — this movie is so ludicrous on so many fundamental levels (unexplained character motivations, clumsy scene transitions) that it almost crosses over into camp territory. The football game recreations seen throughout the movie rarely look convincing, more Marx Brothers (a la Horse Feathers) than Manning brothers. H 1/2
WAITING Writer-director Rob McKittrick obviously views his pet project as the new Clerks, but whereas that Kevin Smith gem featured genuine wit (not to mention some killer quips) beneath the rampant vulgarity, this toxic dump is merely puerile, crammed with incessant employment of the “F” word (fag, that is) and featuring more unkempt pubic hair (male and female) than any picture this side of a 50s-era stag film. Ryan Reynolds, recycling every smart-ass dating back to Tim Matheson in National Lampoon’s Animal House, plays the veteran employee at a chain eatery who’s assigned to show the new kid (John Francis Daley) the ropes. The story kicks into high gear once he explains to the rookie that every male employee must try to trick the other guys into looking at his exposed genitalia. As a compelling plotline, I think it’s safe to say it doesn’t quite compare to Chinatown. H
WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT Clay animator Nick Park first showcased his characters — befuddled, cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his more intelligent canine companion Gromit — in a trio of award-winning short films, then gave the pair a rest as he put his efforts into the delightful Chicken Run. This is the first feature-length W&G outing, and it’s a gem — endlessly witty, it’s the best animated effort of 2005. In this yarn, Wallace (voiced as always by Peter Sallis) and his silent sidekick form a pest control outfit (Anti-Pesto) to humanely take care of their burg’s bunny population, but they soon have their hands full dealing with a monstrous rabbit that’s been destroying all the neighbors’ crops. Tom & Jerry? Mutt & Jeff? Chip & Dale? Amateurs all. It appears that in the toon world, the clay’s the thing, with Wallace & Gromit as the new pioneers of Plasticine. HHH 1/2
THE WEATHER MAN Nicolas Cage, who throughout the past decade has been more grating than ingratiating, here delivers one of his better performances in a movie that mines much of the same emotional terrain as About Schmidt. This serio-comic piece finds Cage cast as David Spritz, a Chicago TV weatherman whose potential career ascension only accentuates the messiness of his personal life. Writer Steven Conrad and director Gore Verbinski offer an affecting tale about a man who has trouble seeing the big picture because all of life’s little asides keep obstructing his view. The film’s sensibilities are just off-center enough to make it interesting, yet there’s always a tug of universal recognition in David’s travails. HHH
OPENS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2:
CHICKEN LITTLE: Animated; voices of Zach Braff, Joan Cusack.
JARHEAD: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx.
SHOPGIRL: Steve Martin, Claire Danes.
This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2005.
