NEW RELEASES
DUPLEX Had Danny DeVito been born British and a quarter-century earlier, he would have fit right in at Ealing Studios, the English outfit known for such biting black comedies as The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets. Most of the movies directed by De Vito (including Death to Smoochy and The War of the Roses) have exhibited a similar strain of acerbic humor as those Ealing classics, and Duplex is no exception, allowing audiences to derive pleasure from watching the characters’ pain. Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore play Alex and Nancy, a writer and graphic designer (respectively) 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 come to the conclusion that murdering her is the only viable option left. Writers Larry Doyle (The Simpsons) and John Hamburg (Meet the Parents) should be commended for milking this premise for all it’s worth — there are no dry spells in this often uproarious comedy, and the resolution is especially clever. 
THE RUNDOWN Toward the beginning of The Rundown, there’s a cameo by an A-list action star, who nods at The Rock as they pass each other in a bar. The gag falls flat, but 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 certainly no more immobile than, say, Schwarzenegger or Stallone, and he has enough innate charm to carry an undemanding picture on his wide shoulders. And The Rundown is certainly undemanding, with The Rock cast as an amiable debt collector who would rather talk through a situation rather than engage in fisticuffs. He’s sent to Brazil to bring his employer’s brash son (Seann William Scott) back to the US, but his mission is hindered by a ruthless American expatriate (Christopher Walken) and a Brazilian freedom fighter (Rosario Dawson), both of whom want the kid kept in the Amazon for their own purposes. Peter Berg, as lousy a director as he was an actor (his previous foray behind the camera was the insufferable Very Bad Things), makes a jumble of the action scenes, meaning this is one of those failed adventure yarns in which the character interaction is forced to make up for other shortcomings. The Rock and Walken do their part, but for an actor of such limited range, Scott (best known as American Pie‘s Stifler) is landing far too many roles to remain interesting.
THE SCHOOL OF ROCK It’d be easy to state that the guiding lights behind The School of Rock have sold out. After all, 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 favorites 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, under false pretenses, lands a job as a substitute teacher at a posh private school, whereupon he immediately 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 Jack Black, whose relentless manic energy gets us to believe that here’s a slovenly yet soulful character who practices what he preaches. And the kids are alright, too — not overly precocious or sentimentalized, these young performers help Black sell the message that our learning institutions would benefit from teaching classic rock right alongside classic lit.
UNDERWORLD It’s an irresistible premise, one that horror fans can sink their teeth into: 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, further embellishing it with swipes from the shadowy likes of The Crow and Dark City. As it stands, Underworld is a joyless exercise in “Gothic grunge,” with poor pacing, lackluster performances and a tendency to include as many gun battles as possible in a bloated 120-minute running time (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). As Selene, the comely vampire who falls for a sensitive werewolf (Scott Speedman), Kate Beckinsale elevates the fine art of pouting to a new level. 1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
AMERICAN SPLENDOR Like Adaptation, this misfit movie about a misfit man draws its strength from its ability to play around with the very structure of the motion picture form. In relating the true-life tale of underground cartoonist Harvey Pekar (aptly played by Paul Giamatti), this piece cleverly whiplashes between using movie actors and using the real-life personalities; the inventiveness even extends to the visuals, as parts are animated and framed like comic strips. For all its audacity around the edges, though, the movie rarely offers anything more than Teflon pleasures; unlike the magnificent documentary Crumb, it’s content to stay on the surface, never digging deep in an attempt to examine the demons that drove Pekar’s life.
ANYTHING ELSE Given the dearth of working-order humor in most of Woody Allen’s recent pictures, it might be easy to oversell this new piece. But this is clearly Minor League Allen, perhaps even Little League Allen. Yet it’s also the closest the 67-year-old auteur has come in years to producing a consistently pleasing film. Part of the appeal is that the creep-out factor has been excised — namely, Allen’s tendency to cast himself as elderly nebbishes who prove to be sexually irresistible to young women. Allen is clearly in hands-off mode, relegating himself to a supporting role as a teacher who offers advice to an aspiring comedian (Jason Biggs) with an aloof girlfriend (Christina Ricci). Creaky in spots, but the cast is appealing and the one-liners work.
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.
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
FREDDY VS. JASON Qualifying as both the 11th picture in the Friday the 13th series and the eighth entry in the Nightmare On Elm Street saga, this combines the two franchises in a manner that’s sure to make mutual devotees of the Police Academy and Rambo series green with envy. By virtue of its plot, which brings Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) and Jason (Ken Kirzinger) together, this is a cut above most of the previous yarns, though there’s still plenty of time for routine kid-gutting before the climactic showdown. This final battle will probably satisfy gorehounds, though anybody who thinks the outcome will rule out any possibilities of yet another sequel has probably been living in their mom’s basement for too long. 1/2
MATCHSTICK MEN Nicolas Cage, in full “Look at me, I’m acting!” mode, gets more endearing as the film progresses, playing a con artist whose medical malfunctions (he’s an obsessive-compulsive) threaten to get in the way of his chosen crime field. And matters become even more complicated once he discovers he has a teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) just as he and his partner (Sam Rockwell) are about to embark on a major swindle. This is the sort of film in which once the climactic twists are revealed (or guessed), viewers will play the film backward to see if all the puzzle pieces fit snugly. For the record, they don’t, but audiences will be reasonably entertained anyway. Lohman, so memorable in White Oleander, is equally impressive here. 1/2
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO A crushing disappointment, this final chapter in the “Mariachi” trilogy (after El Mariachi and Desperado) finds our guitar-swinging, gun-slinging hero (Antonio Banderas) crossing paths with a duplicitous CIA agent (Johnny Depp). So many storylines, so little time to get involved with any of them; the biggest casualty is Banderas, who seems like an extra in his own movie. And while Desperado may have been both bloody and cold-blooded, it contained enough pluses to allow us to turn a blind eye to its less savory elements. This time, there are no smoke screens — only bullets and bloodletting, uniting to provide a dour conclusion to a series that once upon a time offered something more than just gratuitous violence.
THE ORDER Weary travelers who need a place to stop for the night now have a choice: They can spend about $65 to stay in a decent motel or they can shell out eight bucks and crash in an auditorium playing The Order. Either way, their slumber won’t be interrupted. To be fair, this long-on-the-shelf release has an interesting premise, but the film burying it beneath layers of cobwebs is unremittingly dull. Heath Ledger plays a priest who comes into contact with The Sin Eater, an ancient being who absorbs the misdeeds of sinners so that they may enter the kingdom of God. The script posits that there’s only one Sin Eater left on the planet, but we all know that’s bull: Anybody who devours a Whopper or a Big Mac basically falls under this heading as well. 1/2
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.
THIRTEEN Raleigh native Evan Rachel Wood delivers a standout performance as Tracy, a smart, studious girl whose reckless new friend Evie (Nikki Reed, who co-wrote the script with director Catherine Hardwicke) introduces her to sex, drugs and other underage evils. More competently made than Larry Clark’s similar Kids, this explores the seamiest side of teenage life in grim, frightful detail, though Hardwicke doesn’t seem able to apply the brakes on any narrative situation: The movie piles on the tragedies so relentlessly that you half-expect the movie to climax with a tornado. Still, Wood’s performance is revelatory, and she’s matched by the always-terrific Holly Hunter as her suffering mom.
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.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2003.
