NEW RELEASES
THE COOLER It’s not necessarily the sign of a good movie, but it is an indication of an effective one. It’s that moment when you realize that you’ve grown so attached to the central protagonists that you’d almost rather see the movie take some less-than-credible swerves than allow any harm to come to them. That’s certainly the case with The Cooler, which takes an overexposed screen setting : a Las Vegas casino : yet populates it with enough unique characters that we’re perpetually on edge waiting to see what sort of fate awaits each of them. Sporting a plotline curiously reminiscent of the intriguing but little-seen Intacto, this stars William H. Macy as Bernie Lootz, a sad sack whose very presence causes everyone around him to experience bad luck. Bernie is employed by casino manager Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) to “cool” off customers enjoying a hot streak, yet once Bernie falls in love with a sympathetic cocktail waitress named Natalie (Maria Bello), his luck : as well as that of everyone around him : begins to change, a situation that calls for drastic measures on Shelly’s part. Director-cowriter Wayne Kramer and co-scripter Frank Hannah make the romance between Bernie and Natalie both believable and extremely touching, and Macy and Bello deserve kudos for their uninhibited (in all senses of the word) performances. Yet it’s Baldwin who delivers the most memorable turn: As an “old-school” Vegas bigwig whose brutality mingles uneasily with his unusual code of honor, he hasn’t been this good since his pitbull act in 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross. 
ELEPHANT Gus Van Sant’s latest picture earned the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, which says less about the movie’s merits than it does about the festival’s tiresome tendency to reward controversial films regardless of their quality (countless past winners have been simultaneously cheered and jeered by the attendant crowds). Filming in his hometown of Portland, OR, Van Sant has made a minimalist movie about a typical American high school and what happens when a pair of students go on a shooting spree. Obviously drawing upon Columbine, Elephant is neither exploitive nor informative, although it’s certainly a crock. Van Sant’s desire to go for a documentary feel is completely undermined by Harris Savides’ camerawork, which looks as studied and bleakly beautiful as any art magazine spread. And despite Van Sant’s claims that the movie provides no facile answers as to why these kids do what they do, he includes enough background material — these boys play violent video games, watch documentaries about Nazis and engage in homosexual trysts in the shower — to make it clear the director is tipping the scales as blatantly as any more commercially minded filmmaker. Detached to a fault, Elephant seeks to encapsulate the high school experience but instead ends up grabbing at straws.
MONSTER Anyone who’s paid attention the past few years knows that Charlize Theron is more than just a pretty face, yet her mesmerizing turn in this fact-based drama will finally allow the rest of the world to catch up. It isn’t simply that Theron gained weight and thoroughly deglamorized herself to play the part of Aileen Wuornos, the prostitute who killed several men in Florida before finally being caught and executed. It’s that she so completely buries herself in this woman’s impetuousness, rage and vulnerability that she simply ceases to exist; it’s a galvanizing performance in a difficult yet important film that, unlike Elephant, at least provides enough tangible material to allow viewers to form some kind of opinion. Writer-director Patty Jenkins never forces us to sympathize with her protagonist but doesn’t exactly throw her to the wolves, either — rather, she’s honest enough to present Wuornos as both monster and victim, a woman who commits some truly heinous crimes yet who probably never had a chance in life from the minute she was conceived (there’s a superb scene between Wuornos and a male lawyer that sharply sums up each character’s cluelessness about the other’s way of life). Christina Ricci and Bruce Dern have some nice moments as the only two people who can tolerate Wuornos for any extended period of time, yet it’s Theron’s ferocious performance that should have everyone talking right up to Oscartime. 1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
BIG FISH Tim Burton goes for the (Oscar) gold with this colorful fable that attempts to tackle hefty issues using the same mixture of melodrama and mirth that worked so well for Forrest Gump. But forced whimsy isn’t really whimsy at all, and 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). A stellar cast does what it can with this meandering picture that accumulates any emotional steam only during its closing quarter-hour. 1/2
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.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN I haven’t seen the 1950 original, 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.
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
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 cinematic 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
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 14-20, 2004.
