NEW RELEASES
BIG FISH We’ve seen this before: A wildly imaginative filmmaker who has spent his career making entertaining flicks that don’t win major awards (but should) suddenly gets bitten with the desire to do something more profound, precisely in order to start collecting those elusive Oscars, Golden Globes and anything else considered more reputable than a People’s Choice Award. Now it’s Tim Burton’s turn. The man who gave us marvelous flights of fancy like Batman, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Ed Wood goes for the gold with this colorful fable that attempts to tackle hefty issues using the same mixture of melodrama and mirth that worked for Forrest Gump. But forced whimsy isn’t really whimsy at all, and what Burton ends up with is a likable yet hardly awe-inspiring film that simply tries too hard to convince audiences that they’re witnessing An Important Motion Picture. Ironically, for all its surface eccentricities, this turns out to be one of Burton’s most conventional works, relating the story of a journalist (Billy Crudup) who’d like to get to know his dying dad (Albert Finney) before it’s too late. But that’s easier said than done, since Pop is incapable of relating anything but outlandish tall tales involving his exploits as a young man (played in flashback by Ewan McGregor). Yet as more whoppers are spun involving giants, werewolves and witches, it begins to look like there might be some validity to these stories after all. A stellar cast (which also includes Jessica Lange and Helena Bonham Carter) does what it can with this meandering picture that only accumulates any emotional steam during its closing quarter-hour. 
1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
BAD SANTA Bad Santa may be rude, disgusting and offensive, but I laughed plenty of times, which is something I can’t say I did during those sucky Santa Clause flicks. A perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton stars as a lifelong loser who dons the red suit annually to play a department store Santa, simply so he can rob the mall vaults with ease. But this year’s scheme threatens to become more complicated than usual, thanks to the unexpected presence of a pudgy little boy (Brett Kelly) who follows him around like a pet. A sentimental moment or two enters the picture late in the game (and they’re surprisingly effective), but for the most part, this movie carries the power of its non-PC implications right through to the very end. Rarely letting up on the raunch and ridicule, it’s enough to make Will Ferrell’s Elf blush.
CALENDAR GIRLS Based on a true story, this likable yarn chronicles the events that transpire when a group of middle-aged English women decide that the best way to raise money for charity is by posing nude for their annual calendar, a radical idea that rapidly threatens to turn into a global phenomenon. What sounds like an overly calculated endeavor — The Full Monty… with women! — actually gains some genuine mileage out of its inspirational premise, leading ladies (Helen Mirren and Julie Walters), and no shortage of humorous moments.
THE CAT IN THE HAT Scouring the original Dr. Seuss text, I simply could not find the moment when the title feline, standing next to a garden tool, yells, “You dirty ho!” then proceeds to insist he’s only kidding while flicking his tongue in a lascivious manner. Dramatic license? More like rampant necrophilia. In short, this is a catastrophe of the first degree, anchored (and sunk) by Mike Myers’ unctuous performance as the Cat. Myers’ schtick is all one-note self-adulation, a feeble channeling of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion by way of Jerry Lewis, Paul Lynde and Myers’ own Austin Powers. But he isn’t the only problem: Needless subplots constantly interfere, while all the cute characters from the original story are simply creepy on film. In fact, there isn’t much in this crass movie that doesn’t inspire feelings of revulsion.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN I haven’t seen the 1950 aoriginal, yet something inside me — call it my sixth sense for cinematic sacrilege — tells me that it didn’t feel compelled to include a sequence in which a kid slips in the puddle of puke that his brother produced moments earlier. Sure, it’s a gut-buster for the under-12 set, and had the movie limited its idiocy to merely including yuck-o moments like this one to appease the crusty-snot-noses in the audience, it might have been mildly tolerable. But this half-baked Dozen is incompetent at every turn and shameless on every level, with its heartwarming moments more likely to cause heartburn and its comedic bits about as funny as a mad hornet in the mouth. As the dad forced to baby-sit a houseful of kids, Steve Martin continues to fritter away a once-vibrant career.
COLD MOUNTAIN This adaptation of Charles Frazier’s novel turns out to be least compelling when it focuses on the fluttering hearts of its protagonists, a Confederate soldier and the woman he loves. Individually, the performances by Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are fine, yet their scenes together deliver little kick. Luckily, most of the movie keeps them apart, with the soldier making his way back to his North Carolina hometown so they can be reunited. His trek is slowed by his encounters with various characters, and these interludes spark the picture. So, too, do the sequences back home, thanks to Renee Zellweger: Her portrayal as a feisty pioneer woman cuts through the occasional sheen of stuffy self-importance, thus ensuring this Mountain never deteriorates into a molehill of unrelenting melancholy.
ELF While it could stand being a little more naughty and a little less nice, Elf isn’t a pre-fabricated piece of synthetic Christmas cheer like The Santa Clause or Gov. Schwarzenegger’s disastrous Jingle All the Way. While remaining mindful of the season-friendly PG rating, director Jon Favreau and scripter David Berenbaum manage to add a few splashes of Tabasco sauce to the expected puddles of syrup, thereby elevating this fable about a human (Will Ferrell) who, after being raised as an elf at the North Pole, heads to New York. Overcoming a sluggish beginning, both the picture and Ferrell’s broad turn become easier to take once this gets rolling, with some inventive touches (love those Etch-A-Sketch renditions!) and a game cast helping matters along. 1/2
GOTHIKA Guilty by reason of stupidity, this limp thriller’s absurdity begins with its title, a cutesy variation on “Gothic.” Yet although the press material pleads its case that this drivel has its origins in both the same-named French architecture of the 12th century and the English literature of the 1700s, this movie ultimately feels about as Gothic as Finding Nemo. The premise certainly holds promise, with Halle Berry cast as a criminal psychologist who’s suspected of murder and finds herself locked up in her own loony bin. Is she really crazy, or is she the victim of supernatural shenanigans? Almost everything in this doltish drama needs to be accepted with a shrug, from the cheap chiller elements to the idiocy of its characters. 1/2
THE HAUNTED MANSION Eddie Murphy, in neutered, family man mode, tries to keep things jumping with his caffeinated turn as a New Orleans realtor who, with family in tow, spends the night in a ghost-infested manor. It’s hard to believe this sort of trifle would be overplotted, but the script by Davis Berenbaum (Elf) gets so weighed down in the intricacies of its pedestrian storyline (centering on a doomed love affair from the past) that there’s very little time left for pure visceral thrills. Yet even here, the movie’s a bust, as director Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little) and six-time Oscar-winning effects wizard Rick Baker (finally running out of ideas) manage to make even such surefire audience grabbers as a zombie attack exceedingly dull. 1/2
HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG There may have been better individual performances delivered during 2003 (though not many), but as far as tag-team efforts are concerned, there’s no touching Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley in this powerful adaptation of the bestseller by Andre Dubus III. Connelly plays a recovering addict who through petty circumstances ends up losing her house; Kingsley is cast as the Iranian refugee who snatches it up at auction and then refuses to relinquish it. This gripping tale has more on its mind than standard thrills, yet its greatest strength is the manner in which it shifts our loyalties from one character to the next, never allowing us to view either character as a villain (or hero) for too long. 1/2
IN AMERICA Proving that father knows best, writer-director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) teamed up with his grown daughters Naomi and Kirsten to pen this largely autobiographical story in which an immigrant Irish family — dad Johnny (Paddy Considine), mom Sarah (Samantha Morton) and adorable daughters Christy and Ariel (played by real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger) — moves to New York and tries to start a new life in a run-down apartment building mostly populated by drug addicts and muggers. A subplot involving a reclusive neighbor (Djimon Hounsou) who warms up to the girls feels a little too pat and predictable; not so the rest of the film, which contains moments so pure and precise that they take us by surprise.
THE LAST SAMURAI Director Edward Zwick has already demonstrated his capacity to handle expansive epics with Glory and Legends of the Fall, but the picture this most resembles is Dances With Wolves. Yet that maxim about familiarity breeding contempt doesn’t apply here: For all its recognizable trappings, this is an enormously entertaining film. Tom Cruise stars as a former Civil War hero who accepts an assignment to help train the Japanese emperor’s armies in modern forms of combat. This places him in direct conflict with the “old-school” Samurai, but after he’s captured, he becomes fond of their customs and forms an alliance with their leader (magnetic Ken Watanabe). Aside from the weak epilogue, there’s little to dislike in this impressive undertaking. 1/2
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING Pulling off a successful threepeat, director Peter Jackson wraps up J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy saga with a dazzling chapter guaranteed to please true believers. At 200 minutes, the movie is long but not necessarily overlong: The super-sized length allows many cast members to strut their stuff, and several new creatures, from an army of ghostly marauders to a gigantic spider in the best Harryhausen tradition, are staggering to behold. Ultimately, though, this final act belongs to the ringbearer Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his companions, faithful Sam (Sean Astin) and treacherous Gollum (the brilliant CGI creation voiced by Andy Serkis). This is a movie of expensive visual effects and expansive battle scenes, but when it comes to truly making its mark, we have to thank all the little people. 1/2
MONA LISA SMILE An unlikely cross between Dead Poets Society and The Stepford Wives, this casts Julia Roberts as an art teacher who arrives at Wellesley College in 1953, ready to change the world to the chorus of “Carpe Diems.” Instead, she’s shocked to learn that her students plan to shelf their education and become housewives. So it’s up to Saint Julia to save the stuffy college from itself, since no one else can possibly match her sheer fabulousness. Roberts is such a bundle of modern tics that she’s as out of place in this setting as Bill O’Reilly at a Marilyn Manson concert; then again, almost everything feels artificial in this gathering of rigid archetypes and warmed-over speeches. Roberts’ character may be presented as a breath of fresh air, but the movie surrounding her is the cinematic equivalent of halitosis.
PAYCHECK This futuristic yarn is adapted from a story by Philip K. Dick, but the result is less like Blade Runner and Minority Report (both based on Dick works) than just another run-of-the-mill action tale, directed in “hired gun” fashion by John Woo. Woo made the preposterousness in Face/Off exciting, but here he barely seems interested in putting a movie on the screen, showing no discernible style with this initially intriguing thriller about a genius-for-hire (Ben Affleck) who tries to uncover a conspiracy after his memory has been wiped clean. Instead of smartly building on its premise, this merely gets sillier as it unfolds, and Uma Thurman, killing time between Kill Bill release dates, is wasted as Affleck’s love interest.
PETER PAN I’ve never been a fan of this classic tale in any of its numerous incarnations, so imagine my surprise as I fell victim to the rapturous spell of this live-action version, which rivals A Little Princess and The Secret Garden as a prime example of adding both artistry and adult sensibilities to a family project without placing it out of reach for the youngest viewers. Certainly, the small fry will enjoy watching Peter Pan (Jeremy Sumpter) sailing through the air or the slapstick shenanigans of Tinkerbell (Ludivine Sagnier), but this PG-rated adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s original tale often adopts a darker tone that provides added subtext for older viewers. Kudos to director P.J. Hogan and his team for creating such an eye-popping world. 1/2
SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE Those of us who fell in love with Diane Keaton in Annie Hall now have an opportunity to rekindle that romance. She’s simply smashing as a playwright not particularly fond of her daughter’s new boyfriend, a 63-year-old bachelor (Jack Nicholson) who only dates women under 30. But eventually the pair find themselves overcoming their antagonism, leading to a rocky romance that’s complicated by his womanizing ways and her burgeoning relationship with a boyish doctor (Keanu Reeves, never more appealing). For most of its length, this emerges as one of the premiere romantic comedies of recent years, but a disastrous, tacked-on ending hangs from the rest of the picture as awkwardly as a Florida chad.
STUCK ON YOU Filmmaking siblings Peter and Bobby Farrelly are finally growing up. That’s not necessarily a good thing — I’m chuckling even now thinking about many of the decidedly non-PC moments in There’s Something About Mary and Kingpin — but with Shallow Hal and now this comedy about conjoined twins (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear), they’ve allowed the latent humanity that has always been evident in their pictures to finally make its way to the surface — and in the process submerge almost all potentially offensive elements. Yet while this film contains many riotous moments, it’s also undermined by a distracting sloppiness that never allows the material to build any real momentum. And is it just me, or is co-star Cher’s extensive facial reconstruction starting to make her look like the female Michael Jackson? 1/2
TIMELINE Based on the Michael Crichton novel, this Medieval romp couldn’t be sillier if Monty Python’s knights who say “Ni!” turned up for an extended cameo. A group of present-day archaeologists are hurled back to 14th century France to rescue their professor (Billy Connolly), who himself had been sent back after a wormhole linking the past and present had been discovered. Bless this cornball picture for holding our interest throughout its entire length — how could it not, when practically every scene will leave audiences tittering for one reason or another? If it’s not the overripe dialogue, it’s the incompetent performance by star Paul Walker, the baffling plot inconsistencies, the clashing dialects or the puzzling character motivations.
21 GRAMS Whiplashing between past and present, writer-director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros) has fashioned an absorbing drama that’s as much about loneliness, retribution and redemption as it is about matters of the heart. Much of the movie’s potency comes from viewers being allowed to slowly connect its pieces, so suffice it to say that the story centers on three individuals (Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, all terrific) whose lives are all affected by the same car crash. As narrative fragments bombard us and the storyline circles back on itself repeatedly, it becomes apparent that the melodramatics are merely a necessity to forward the movie’s exploration of the manner in which life and death are constantly stepping on each other’s toes. 1/2
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2004.
