NEW RELEASES
CASA DE LOS BABYS Writer-director John Sayles has successfully tackled so many unexpected subjects that one has to wonder if the accomplished filmmaker has a dartboard in his office to help him pick his next topic. Striking coal miners in West Virginia? Sure! Greedy land developers in Florida? Why not? Trigger-happy revolutionaries in Central America? Cool! For his latest stab at a subject most other filmmakers wouldn’t even consider, Sayles looks at the practice of Americans adopting infants from foreign countries. Here, the setting is an unspecified South American city, as six women — naive Maggie Gyllenhaal, spiritual Daryl Hannah, bitchy Marcia Gay Harden, struggling Susan Lynch, optimistic Mary Steenburgen and forthright Lili Taylor — hang out together as they wait for government clearance to cart kids back to the US. Merely examining the predicaments of these six women wouldn’t be enough of a challenge for Sayles, so he also uses various Latino characters to comment on the fear of unemployment, the plight of street urchins and the devastation of young unwed women forced to give up their children. The abrupt ending is probably intentional — it’s Sayles way of saying that life goes on and nothing will really change — but with a running time of only 95 minutes, it also cheats us of spending more time with these interesting characters. 
INTOLERABLE CRUELTY Even before Jennifer Lopez became Public Enemy Number 1, her hyped rapport with George Clooney in Out of Sight was vastly overrated, primarily because both actors gave such snoozy performances. But Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones? Now that’s a sexy pairing that works. It’s hard to determine whether they brought out the best in each other, or whether the Coen Brothers brought out the best in both of them, but at any rate, they’re perfectly cast in Intolerable Cruelty, a romantic comedy that from a distance doesn’t look like a Coens feature until it gets rolling. Clooney, in one of his best screen turns to date, exhibits the right degree of screwball aptitude as Miles Massey, a hotshot divorce lawyer who may have finally met his match in the gold-digging Marylin Rexroth (Zeta-Jones, who hasn’t been this alluring since her breakthrough in The Mask of Zorro). When he’s not playing dull heroes, Clooney comes across as the class clown trapped in the class president’s body, and his zest in mocking his own leading man status works to glorious advantage here. Yet he and Zeta-Jones aren’t the whole show, not when they’re backed by the usual assortment of Coen-kooks (you just know that a character named “Wheezy Joe” will be good for some laughs) as well as a screenplay that ably captures the long-established rhythms of the screwball form.
CURRENT RELEASES
CABIN FEVER You know the routine: Five idiotic kids with sex and drugs on the brain hole up in a shack in the middle of nowhere (filming largely took place in North Carolina); after spending some time making fun of the inbred locals, they’re suddenly confronted with a terror that ends up picking them off one by one. In this case, it’s a disease (spread through water) that causes the victim’s flesh to peel off, eventually leaving only blood, bones and very toothy grimaces. Like the recent 28 Days Later, the film’s power derives not from its scare angle (which isn’t too fantastical in this era of SARS and AIDS) but from its depiction of the manner in which humans will turn on each other when their own survival is at stake. 1/2
COLD CREEK MANOR This weak thriller is like a dead-end street in a swanky neighborhood, offering some interesting glimpses along the way but ultimately leading nowhere. Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone play an NYC couple who, tired of the big-city bustle, purchase a mansion out in the sticks. Once the previous owner (Stephen Dorff), a rube just released from prison, shows up, bad things start happening, and the family soon suspects that their new home may have once been host to tragic events. What Richard Jefferies’ script lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in gaping plotholes — hardly a fair trade-off. Director Mike Figgis also composed the score, which during the tense scenes sounds like a two-year-old incessantly banging on random piano keys.
DUPLEX In this often uproarious comedy, Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore play a couple who believe they’ve found their dream house when they purchase a duplex in Brooklyn. They figure they can deal with the fact that they’ll be sharing their abode with a longtime rent-controlled tenant, a 90something-year-old Irish woman (Eileen Essel), but once this seemingly harmless lady turns their lives into a living hell, they decide that murdering her is the only viable option left. Director Danny DeVito and writers Larry Doyle (The Simpsons) and John Hamburg (Meet the Parents) ably milk this premise for all it’s worth — there are no dry spells in this comedy that’s in the style of such Ealing Studios classics as The Ladykillers.
THE FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS Cuba Gooding Jr., so animated a performer that he even appears to be overacting on this movie’s poster, plays a crafty New York ad executive who returns to his hometown of Montecarlo, GA, to attend the funeral of his beloved aunt. Before he can collect his inheritance, though, he must fulfill his aunt’s wish of steering the church choir to success in the prestigious Gospel Explosion. For the most part, the movie’s non-musical segments are painfully formulaic bits centering around Gooding’s wholly uninspired character, yet when the gospel tunes take center stage (which thankfully is often), the movie transcends its trite surroundings and emerges as a theater-shaking crowd-pleaser. 1/2
KILL BILL VOL. 1 Online film geeks who believe cinema was only invented in their lifetimes will consider this prime porn, but more knowledgable viewers will be let down after all the hype. Simple, straightforward and streamlined, Quentin Tarantino’s latest is an action flick in which a woman warrior (Uma Thurman) seeks revenge against her former associates. There’s no reason this wafer of a story should be supported by multiple movies (Vol. 2 arrives in February), not when the trimming of countless repetitious shots might possibly have resulted in one zippy, kick-ass film. Tarantino’s gimmicky approach eventually becomes tiresome; if the second volume is anything like this one, they might want to consider changing its name to Overkill Bill.
LOST IN TRANSLATION In what may be the finest performance of his career, Bill Murray stars as Bob Harris, an American movie star who’s come to Tokyo to appear in a whiskey commercial. Initially, he appears to be suffering from jet lag, but it soon becomes apparent that this malaise isn’t temporary — on the contrary, Bob’s in a perpetual gloomy funk. He befriends a young American woman (Scarlett Johansson) staying at the swanky hotel, and they eventually form a special bond. A specialized movie for a specialized audience, director Sofia Coppola’s fabulous new film is one of those unique, introverted gems that either enfolds you with its generosity of spirit or leaves you cold. And filmgoers who complain about the artificiality of most American movies are especially encouraged to check it out — as is usually the case in the real world, this picture shows that there are no happy endings or sad endings, and, sometimes, there are no endings at all. Many people will call this film a slice of life. I call it a slice of heaven.
NOWHERE IN AFRICA Winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, Germany’s Nowhere In Africa, adapted by writer-director Caroline Link from Stefanie Zweig’s autobiographical book, is unusual in how it expertly blends two popular types of movies to create one seamless motion picture experience. On one hand, this is the kind of expansive epic popularized by such open-air extravaganzas as Legends of the Fall, Dances With Wolves and Out of Africa; on the other, it’s an intimate tale about the Jewish experience during World War II, centering on a family that escapes from Germany and winds up in Kenya, whereupon each member develops a special rapport with the new surroundings. 1/2
OUT OF TIME Denzel Washington is the marquee attraction, and Eva Mendes and Sanaa Lathan are the heavily promoted up-and-comers, but it’s unknown John Billingsley who pumps up this negligible piece of pulp fiction. The film itself is a sloppily assembled variation on the Kevin Costner hit No Way Out, with Washington cast as a small-town police chief who comes to realize that all the evidence in a double homicide paints him as the murderer. It’s always a treat to watch Washington ply his trade, but the predictability of the mystery coupled with credibility-stretching circumstances render it dopey rather than deft. The sole fresh ingredient is Billingsley’s noteworthy turn as Washington’s wisecracking sidekick.
THE RUNDOWN Toward the film’s beginning, there’s a cameo by an A-list action star, who nods at The Rock as they pass each other in a bar. We get the drift: With most of our matinee heroes getting older, the baton must be passed, and why shouldn’t The Rock be included on the short list of newcomers primed for action flick supremacy? The wrestling superstar is no more immobile than, say, Schwarzenegger or Stallone, and he has enough innate charm to carry an undemanding picture. And this one is certainly undemanding, with The Rock cast as a debt collector who’s sent to Brazil to bring his employer’s brash son (Seann William Scott) back to the US. Peter Berg, as lousy a director as he was an actor, makes a jumble of the action scenes, but the film has its moments.
THE SCHOOL OF ROCK Director Richard Linklater’s previous credits include Waking Life and Dazed and Confused, while scripter Mike White’s resume contains The Good Girl and Chuck & Buck. These indie faves won’t ever be mistaken for multiplex blockbusters, yet here the pair have teamed up for this accessible comedy about a failed rock star (Jack Black) who lands a job as a substitute teacher at a posh private school, whereupon he begins teaching his buttoned-down fifth grade charges about the glories of rock & roll. It sounds like the sort of sanitized product that might star Eddie Murphy (Dokken Day Care?), yet what gives the movie any semblance of an edge is Black, whose relentless manic energy perfectly suits the project.
SECONDHAND LIONS Acting greats Robert Duvall and Michael Caine co-star as brothers Hub and Garth, two old coots who take their lonely nephew (Haley Joel Osment) under their wing and regale him with tales about their swashbuckling exploits from bygone years. A curious concoction that throws together Grumpy Old Men, Unstrung Heroes and The Man Who Would Be King (to name but three), this film may be all over the map, but at least it takes viewers to some interesting places. For that, credit writer-director Tim McCanlies, who knows which situations will allow his stars to shine the brightest. Reserve the highest praise, however, for Duvall and Caine, who effectively sell this iffy material.
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN In this loose adaptation of Frances Mayes’ memoir, Diane Lane is irresistible as our heroine, who, on the heels of a nasty divorce, heads to Italy for a vacation. There, she falls in love with the Tuscan countryside and on a whim purchases a dilapidated villa in need of dire restoration. Tuscan Sun largely plays out as one might expect, though the journey is so enjoyable that many audience members won’t mind being led down this familiar path once more. Lane’s heartfelt performance provides much-needed depth to her character’s plight, and the supporting players are a finely drawn bunch. A warm and luminous film, Tuscan Sun lets us hold onto summer for just a while longer.
UNDERWORLD It’s an irresistible premise: What if a centuries-spanning battle continues to be waged between vampires and werewolves, with the suave bloodsuckers living comfortably as aristocrats and the brutish lycanthropes relegated to dwelling beneath the city streets? It might have made for a good movie had cowriter-director Len Wiseman not insisted on shooting his picture as a direct rip-off of The Matrix. As it stands, this is a joyless exercise in “Gothic grunge,” with poor pacing, lackluster performances and a tendency to include as many gun battles as possible in its bloated 120 minutes. And why supernaturally endowed creatures of the night would even have to resort to using guns at every opportunity is one of the movie’s nerdier concepts. 1/2
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2003.
