Film Clips

NEW RELEASES

DOWN WITH LOVE Trying to replicate those frothy Rock Hudson-Doris Day romantic comedies from the late 50s/early 60s was a clever idea; cross-pollinating it with the Austin Powers movies before letting it reach the screen was a terrible one. Indeed, it’s the smarmy, smutty humor that single-handedly threatens to torpedo this kitschy throwback that nevertheless contains enough appealing elements to just barely overcome its fondness for awkward double entendres. Director Peyton Reed (Bring It On) and his crew get the look right, from the Technicolor saturation to the lavish sets to the ab-fab costumes, and scripters Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake have come up with an acceptable plotline involving a playboy-journalist (Ewan McGregor) and his attempts to tame the author (Renee Zellweger) of a best-selling pre-feminist manifesto. McGregor and Zellweger are likable in their roles, even if they’re far more mannered than Hudson and Day ever were. Still, movies of this ilk were often stolen by the supporting players, and that’s the case here as well, with Sarah Paulson and especially David Hyde Pierce delightful as the leads’ confidantes. Had this steered clear of the juvenile gags that pop up every now and then (the split-screen phone conversation sequence is downright dreadful), it might have been closer to last year’s Far From Heaven as both a homage and a deepening of vintage classics; instead, it’s merely an adequate comedy with eye-popping visuals. 1/2

CURRENT RELEASES

DADDY DAY CARE There’s been a lot of grousing lately about how any time Eddie Murphy appears in a family film, he’s wasting the hard-edged skills that initially made him a star in such R-rated hits as 48HRS. and Beverly Hills Cop. I’d be more sympathetic to this argument had Murphy only made good R-rated flicks, but the truth is that he’s far easier to take in pictures like Mulan and now Daddy Day Care than in foul-mouthed turkeys like Beverly Hills Cop II, Harlem Nights and Vampire In Brooklyn. In fact, Murphy’s charming performance proves to be one of the stronger aspects of this PG-rated piffle about two marketing executives (Murphy and Jeff Garlin) who, after losing their jobs, decide to open their own day care center. The usual unimaginative touches are on view — several flatulence bits, over-the-top comic foils (played by Anjelica Huston and Kevin Nealon), etc. — but an acceptable number of decent gags, a sweet turn by Steve Zahn as a Daddy Day Care employee with a Star Trek obsession, and Murphy’s strong rapport with his young co-stars (especially Khamani Griffin as his son) make this more enjoyable than any level-headed adult could have reasonably expected. 1/2

THE GREY ZONE Roman Polanski’s The Pianist may have been showered with Oscar glory a couple of months ago, but the best Holocaust film of 2002 was actually this overlooked drama starring David Arquette, Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi. Writer-director Tim Blake Nelson’s film goes one step further than The Pianist, which itself went one step further than the traditional Holocaust epic: Whereas Polanski’s protagonist was painted not so much as a hero but a valiant survivalist, many of the characters here are painted as morally compromised survivalists who will do almost anything to stave off death for just a while longer. The picture centers on a remarkable tidbit of history: the only successful uprising that ever occurred at the Nazi death camps during World War II. Its primary players are members of the Sonderkommando, a special squad of Jewish prisoners who helped the Germans usher the rest of the Jews into the crematoriums in exchange for a few extra months of life. Some of them maintain a stiff upper lip while plotting a revolt, while others are more outwardly emotional, nagged by a crushing sense of guilt over what they’re doing to their countrymen. It can be argued that most Holocaust pictures are ultimately about the triumph of the human spirit; befitting its title, this one is more cloudy than that, exploring murky mindsets amid murky circumstances. 1/2

HOLES Louis Sachar’s award-winning children’s book might be a “must-read” among students and teachers, but the widely circulated trailer made the new screen version look like a “must-avoid.” Luckily, the finished product is far more engaging than the clumsy preview would lead anyone to believe — in fact, it’s good enough to be enjoyed equally by kids and their attendant parents. Sachar himself wrote the script, which focuses on the plight of hapless teen Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf of the Disney Channel’s Even Stevens), who’s wrongly convicted of robbery and sent to Camp Green Lake, a boys’ correctional facility located in the middle of a desert. There, he and the other guys are subjected to the demands of the warden (Sigourney Weaver) and her two sidekicks (Tim Blake Nelson and a hilariously over-the-top Jon Voight), who order the boys to spend every day digging holes. Sachar and director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) have crafted a fresh comedy-drama that weaves the present-day story together with related flashbacks set in the Old West (Patricia Arquette stars in this section of the film); while the ending may tie everything up a bit too tidily, there’s no denying that there’s real imagination at work here.

IDENTITY As a longtime fan of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, this new thriller, which works from the same template, completely had me in its grip for the first hour. Eleven people, including a former cop (John Cusack), an active cop (Ray Liotta), a hooker (Amanda Peet) and a has-been actress (Rebecca DeMornay), all find themselves stranded at a desolate hotel during a massive rain storm, whereupon they start getting murdered one by one. With this cast lending prestige and a competent director (James Mangold of Girl, Interrupted) emphasizing mounting suspense over cheap scares, Identity works like gangbusters until it reveals Major Plot Twist #1 with about 20 minutes to go (Major Plot Twist #2 concerns the killer’s identity during the final minutes, but this one’s easy to figure out for those familiar with the ground rules of the genre). Without giving too much away, this sudden reversal of circumstances might catch most audiences off guard and certainly takes the film into a new direction, but that’s not necessarily a plus, as this shift largely negates everything that preceded it and ends up reducing its initially intriguing characters to nothing more than paper dolls. It’s a real shame: Perhaps the Director’s Cut on DVD will shuck the entire final third and add a better resolution, but let’s not hold our breath.

THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE The appeal of the Disney Channel’s top-rated kids’ show Lizzie McGuire can doubtless be traced right to its star, 15-year-old Hilary Duff. Duff plays Lizzie as part Lucille Ball, part Britney Spears (minus the sleaze factor) and part Julie Andrews, serving up a squeaky clean teen whose only flaw seems to be her excessive use of makeup. Perhaps inevitably, we now get the big-screen spin-off, yet while the movie should prove to be manna from sit-com heaven for the show’s fan base of kids ages 6-14, there’s not much here to excite accompanying parents. Like one of those two-part Brady Bunch or Happy Days episodes that were invariably shown during sweeps weeks, this rounds up the cast of TV regulars and transports them to a foreign setting — in this case, Italy, which is where a class trip takes Lizzie, best friend Gordo (Adam Lamberg) and her other schoolmates. This sets the stage for a lame mistaken identity romp (Duff plays both Lizzie and an Italian pop star), yet Duff’s vast appeal renders it harmless to the senses. Rating for its target audience: four stars. Rating for the rest of us:

A MIGHTY WIND At the start of the latest “mockumentary” from writer-director-actor Christopher Guest (Best In Show, Waiting for Guffman), music promoter Irving Steinbloom has just passed away, and to honor his memory, his son (Bob Balaban) has decided to organize a live TV concert that would bring together the three 60s folk groups that Irving had championed back in the day. The New Main Street Singers, led by a perpetually chipper couple (John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch), are happy to take part, as are the three guys who make up The Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer). More problematic is the acquisition of the formerly lovey-dovey duo of Mitch (Eugene Levy, who co-scripted with Guest) and Mickey (Catherine O’Hara), since Mitch had suffered an emotional meltdown and has been enduring life in a shell-shocked state. A Mighty Wind doesn’t quite provide as many laughs as Guest’s previous two pictures, yet the film does offer an acceptable tradeoff: There’s a genuine element of poignancy surrounding the proceedings, and the lovely songs, all written by cast members specifically for this movie, add the icing on the cake. As an obnoxious band manager whose mouth travels a mile a minute but whose brain can only manage a yard a day, Fred Willard is back in scene-stealing mode; still, the performance that stays with you the most is the one by Levy, whose work conveys a tenderness that momentarily slices through the satire. 1/2

30 YEARS TO LIFE Don’t let the title fool you into dismissing this as another Steven Seagal action snooze; on the contrary, this debut feature from writer-director Vanessa Middleton follows in the tradition of the lovely Soul Food as a winning look at well-to-do African-Americans struggling with careers and relationships. Here, the unifying theme among its central characters is that they’re all 29 and will be celebrating their 30th birthdays over the course of the film. For most of them, this milestone brings up feelings of anxiety: Natalie (Melissa De Sousa) is a beautiful, brainy career woman who can’t understand why she’s unlucky in love; Troy (Tracy Morgan) is a stand-up comedian wondering if his breakthrough will ever arrive; Joy (Erika Alexander) and Leland (T.E. Russell) have been together for four years, with visions of matrimony in her eyes but not his; Stephanie (Paula Jai Parker) is an overweight woman who decides to remake herself; and Malik (Allen Payne) is an incurable womanizer who tries his hand at a modeling career. Besides ably tapping into that well of insecurity that invariably accompanies the aging process (and providing several big laughs along the way), Middleton exhibits her skills as a storyteller by making sure each interconnected episode is as engaging as the one that preceded it and also by resisting the urge to neatly tie up every story strand — in fact, I can already see the sequel: What? 40 Already?!

X2 Almost on a par with the Y2K hit X-Men, this exciting sequel kicks off the summer movie season in style. While not quite matching the sense of wonder that accompanied the first picture, this one boasts a more polished script, vastly improved special effects, and a longer running time (135 minutes, a full half-hour over its predecessor) that gives more players more time to strut their stuff. This time, kindly Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his band of do-gooder mutants find themselves teaming up with arch-villain Magneto (Ian McKellen) in an effort to bring down a ruthless military man (Brian Cox) hell-bent on eradicating every mutant on the planet. Practically every character from the first film returns, and there’s the welcome addition of Alan Cumming as the sweet-natured Nightcrawler, a blue-skinned German with the ability to teleport out of tight jams. As with most sci-fi sequels, this will seem incomprehensible to folks who elected to skip the first film, but even they’ll be able to glean the subtext often found in superhero adventures: A just and civilized society has no room for prejudice against those who are born different. X2 hammers that point home, with thinly veiled outbursts against warmongering right-wing administrations and homophobia. Hugh Jackman again excels as Wolverine, with noteworthy support by McKellen and especially Famke Janssen as soulful telepath Jean Grey.

MILLER’S CROSSING (1990) / BARTON FINK (1991). Two of the Coen Brothers’ earliest releases are simultaneously making their DVD debuts, and while they may not have endured in the public’s mind as vibrantly as some of the siblings’ other titles, both remain as compelling as ever. Miller’s Crossing, somewhat overshadowed in its day due to being released between two higher-profile gangster flicks (GoodFellas and The Godfather Part III), casts Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney and John Turturro in a smartly scripted mob tale that’s brimming with bravura filmmaking techniques and a welcome streak of nasty humor. Barton Fink, the first film to win the top three prizes at Cannes (Film, Director and Actor), is a complete original about a New York playwright (Turturro) who ends up in Hollywood to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture for a “B” studio run by a dictatorial blowhard (Oscar-nominated Michael Lerner); he ends up befriending a traveling salesman (John Goodman), only to find his life turning into a surreal nightmare. Extra features on the Miller’s Crossing DVD include a photo gallery and interview clips, while extras on Barton Fink include eight deleted scenes and theatrical trailers. Both films: 1/2

THE PIANIST (2002) Winner of the top prize at Cannes as well as three surprise Oscars (Actor, Director and Adapted Screenplay), Roman Polanski’s drama recounts the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Jewish musician who, through the kindness of strangers and breaks of good fortune, managed to survive the Holocaust. The first half of the picture, more familiar but also more emotionally draining, centers on the Nazi atrocities occurring to those around Szpilman, while the second part shifts gears to concentrate on how he basically had to spend the remaining part of the war hiding out on his own, spending countless months with nothing to do, nothing to see, and usually nothing to eat. More reflective and deliberately paced than many films of this nature, this nevertheless contains some truly disturbing scenes that will be tough for many viewers to take. DVD extras include a making-of feature. — Matt Brunson

This article appears in May 21-27, 2003.