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| Woody Allen (Fine Line Features). |
In Barbara Kopple's documentary Wild Man Blues (
out of four), Woody Allen is funnier — and though it seems impossible, even more neurotic - than in most of his own films. The occasion is an 18-city, 23-day European concert tour during which Allen plays clarinet with a New Orleans-style jazz band hand-picked and directed by the estimable banjoist Eddy Davis. Allen finds pain and frustration at every turn and in each sumptuous hotel. An omelette is too hard. A shower drain is in the wrong place. A gondola ride in Venice evokes fears of murder.
Seinfeld co-creator Larry David brings his dark comedy Sour Grapes (
out of four) to screens this weekend, which tells the story of two cousins played by Steven Weber and Craig Bierko. The bosom buddies feud after one lends the other the quarter that hits a slot-machine jackpot. Sour Grapes has its moments, but they're too few not to disappoint, despite David's consistently nasty sense of humor.
The much-delayed thriller Nightwatch (
out of four), a remake of a Danish film, has been collecting dust. The reason is apparent: It's dreadful, despite a solid cast that includes art-house heartthrob Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte, Patricia Arquette and Josh Brolin. Delivering little in the way of goose-bumptious pleasures, it unnecessarily adds to the done-to-death "Jack the Ripoff" genre - the psycho who kills prostitutes in gruesome ways. Affable every-bloke McGregor, battling his Scottish brogue and losing, is a law student who takes a job as a morgue security guard. Meanwhile, hookers are being targeted by an unknown loony who forces them to play dead to the tune of This Old Man and then carves out their eyes. Why? Well, as Nolte's cop investigating the case tells McGregor, such crimes are just "meaningless chaos." So is the picture as McGregor is set up in outlandish ways to be the prime suspect. Brolin registers strongly as McGregor's thrill-addicted buddy. Nolte gives his beady eyes a workout. But most out-there is Brad Dourif as a nutty doctor who considers McGregor "undermedicated." Lurid Nightwatch, on the other hand, is underdeveloped. (R: violence, language, sexuality, drug use)
 Walter Matthau, left, and Jack Lemmon (Paramount). |
If that familiar jaunty theme music sends a rush through your body like a Geritol-and-prune-juice cocktail, then shrug off critical reservations and see The Odd Couple II (
out of four). Thirty years have passed since the original, but about the only new wrinkles are on the faces of the leads. Jack Lemmon's finicky Felix still honks like a dying goose to blast his sinuses. Walter Matthau's slob Oscar still dresses like an unmade bed and plays poker, only now with gabby gal pals in Florida. And the guys still bicker as only best buddies can.
 Billy Crystal, left, and Gheorghe Muresan (AP). |
Too bad My Giant ( out of four stars) couldn't be reborn as a smarter, sap-free movie. Billy Crystal is a mahvelous Oscar host. Fresh, frisky and totally fearless - everything he's not when stuck in a cloying film comedy like Giant. Here Crystal plays a sleazy talent agent who discovers a nearly 8-foot colossus (basketball's Gheorghe Muresan) living among monks in Romania and tries to put the reluctant thespian in the movies. An odd-couple road trip ensues, from New York to New Mexico, as Muresan searches for his childhood sweetheart.
The good Michael triumphs over the suspect Michael in Moore's big-screen follow-up to Roger & Me, even though the result inevitably lacks the element of surprise that sparked that 1989 art-house hit. As movies go, The Big One (
out four) is a small one, but it's more consistently funny than Moore's mid-90s broadcast salvo TV Nation. Among the things it teaches us (and Moore has footage to back up his assertion) is that former presidential candidate Steve Forbes is the only human who can go for an entire minute without blinking.
 Campbell Scott and Rebecca Pidgeon (Sony). |
The Spanish Prisoner ( out of four) sounds on paper like the movie that must have everything. It doesn't, yet there are enough twists and grown-up intrigue to keep one asking, "Hey, what's going on here?" until a merely OK resolution. Though the title suggests a Tyrone Power-Anthony Quinn '40s swashbuckler, it actually alludes to an age-old "Spanish Prisoner" con artist ruse. Here, the con victim is an inventor who fears his corporate employers are about to shaft him out of windfall profits his top-secret formula will generate. Campbell Scott is a good choice to play this loner, yet the most enjoyable casting choice is Steve Martin as the intense but murky jet-setter who offers to help Scott seek restitution.
 Eamonn Owens, left, and Alan Boyle (Geffen Pictures). |
After making Interview With the Vampire and Michael Collins, writer/director Neil Jordan is again working on the small scale in The Butcher Boy ( ou t of four). The movie is well-crafted and tightly assembled, but it's also loud and unmodulated. A more macabre approach might have turned this into an Irish equivalent of Britain's The Young Poisoner's Handbook (1995), which has it all over this movie as the dissection of a sociopath.
 Edward Burn and Lauren Holly (Gramercy). |
Edward Burns' No Looking Back ( out of four) is the third outing from the writer-director-star, and it's conclusive proof that life in an oceanside burg can be drab and uninvolving. Either through accident or abject miscalculation, Burns has served up something different after The Brothers McMullen and She's the One. Lead Lauren Holly and her co-stars are at romantic crossroads just like their Burns predecessors, but this time Burns isn't even trying to make the characters funny. The result comes off as an ill-conceived serious statement, which means Burns may have done the right thing by taking a break from filmmaking to act in Steven Spielberg's coming Saving Private Ryan.
 Julianna Margulies and Matthew McConaughey (20th Century Fox). |
The Newton Boys ( out of four) is the story of four brothers who in 1924 pulled off the largest train robbery in American history, while adhering to their own moral code: Don't kill, don't rat and respect women and children. Banks and a Chicago train are another matter. As portrayed by Matthew McConaughey in his first fully satisfying screen performance, Willis Newton regards his three younger brothers and their associates as social rectifiers who take money only from the real thieves: bankers and their directors. The farm boys do use guns, but as warnings and door-blasting devices.
 John Travolta and Emma Thompson (Universal Studios). |
Primary Colors (
out of four) perfectly captures the spirit of its topic and time to become The Big Chill of politics. It's a film about the picking of issues and moments, the role of the media and the lowering standards of the electorate. John Travolta plays Southern governor Jack Stanton, who rises from obscurity to be a front-runner in the race to the presidency, but has flaws that extend beyond the love of an occasional jelly donut. Emma Thompson stars as Stanton's ambitious wife, and Kathy Bates stars as Libby Holden, an outspoken lesbian whose specialty is "dust-busting."
 Denise Richards, left, and Neve Campbell (Mandalay Entertainment). |
Wild Things ( out of four) stars Scream queen Neve Campbell and Starship Trooper Denise Richards as Suzie and Kelly, two teen-age sex kittens from opposite sides of the track, entangled in a menage a trois and a murder mystery. The third part of their kinky triangle is Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), their high school guidance counselor. Also involved are the local cops, exemplified by suspicious detective Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon). Robert Wagner and Bill Murray also appear.
 Mick Jagger as Greta (Goldwyn Entertainment). |
During Berlin's infamous Night of the Long Knives, Nazi secret police murdered associates of homosexual commander Ernst Rohm and launched Hitler's reign of terror which targeted gays as well as Jews and gypsies. Hitler's attack on gays inspired a hit play in London and New York in 1979, entitled Bent. And now Bent ( out of four) is finally on the movie screen, telling the story of the "imagined relationship" between two gay men at Dachau and of love's resilience in even the most dire situations. Among notable players, Ian McKellen from the original play 19 years ago and Mick Jagger, who plays Berlin's reigning drag queen.
Mr. Nice Guy ( out of four) is the latest Jackie Chan film to hit these shores - and that may be all you need to know. Chan plays Jackie, a former cop turned TV chef, cooking noodles for an adoring audience. He becomes inadvertently entangled in a war between two Melbourne gangs, battling over money, turf and drugs. Much of the film is awful, but Chan fans will love the extended chase sequence that opens the movie. But even by the low standards of Chan films, Mr. Nice Guy isn't very good.
 Leonardo DiCaprio (United Artists). |
You get double the DiCaprio - one hissable, one kissable - in the hopelessly old-fashioned if richly staged swashbuckler The Man in the Iron Mask (
out of four). The sight of Titanic's buoy wonder gamely tackling the dual roles of France's cruel King Louis XIV and imprisoned mystery twin Philippe is likely to elicit enough female sighs to create a gale-force windstorm. But to these nonteen ears and eyes, the kid is no more real in either guise than his phony flowing locks. And the romantic scenes fizzle next to Titanic's steamy roll in a Rolls.
 Robert Downey Jr., left, and Tommy Lee Jones (Warner Bros.). |
You don't get the sense that too many enthusiasts are hanging up wanted posters for U.S. Marshals ( out of four), a gratuitous 2 1/4-hour spinoff of The Fugitive. Tommy Lee Jones is back sporting a scowl that can be obliterated only by the triumph of justice or a warehouse of Ex-Lax. The movie is basically a clip reel of action production numbers, though admittedly some of these are staged with a ta-da-da-da sense of showmanship. The first of many is an auto mishap that leads to the arrest of a poorly written character played by Wesley Snipes. The second is the spectacular smashup of a plane that's transporting deputy marshal Jones, the now accused-of-murder Snipes.
 Susan Susan Sarandon and Paul Newman (Paramount Pictures). |
With its underlying theme of Hollywood class resentment and an array of B-list citizenry, Robert Benton's aptly titled Twilight ( out of four) is better than a lot of contemporary films at capturing the feel of vintage Los Angeles-based detective fiction. Though it's far too subdued to please action-at-any-cost types, a heavyweight cast gives this minor work the kind of authority that special effects can't buy.
 Jeff Bridges, left, and John Goodman (Gramercy Pictures). |
The Big Lebowski (out of four) is a noir send-up, so call it L.A. Inconsequential. It's also about 15-year-old car thieves who are failing social studies, skinny German nihilists bearing angry marmots, topless beach bimbos, severed toes and music appreciation (Creedence vs. Eagles). After the deep-freeze understatement of the acclaimed Fargo, those purveyors of postmodern perversity known as the Coen brothers are rarin' to go full-tilt gonzo again.
 Jessica Lange (Touchstone Pictures). |
Hush, hush, sweet Jessica. Please. It's far too soon for an actress as vital as Jessica Lange to stoop to Bette Davis-Joan Crawford horror-hag histrionics. Not that she hasn't been a few cashews short of a mixed-nut assortment in movies such as Blue Sky. But the emotional meltdown she endures as a maternal monster in Hush ( out of four) - call it The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is My Mother-in-Law - makes the Wicked Witch of the West look like a shrinking violet. Don't let the tony decor fool you. Hush is recycled junk - campy fun at times but total trash.
 Jenna Elfman (Touchstone Pictures). |
Krippendorf's Tribe ( out of four), a surprisingly enjoyable piece of piffle, is pure Disney all the way, replete with a wholly preposterous plot, engaging performances and a feel-good, lesson-teaching ending. Krippendorf's Tribe centers on the dysfunctional family of anthropologist James Krippendorf (Richard Dreyfuss), who has been depressed and inactive for a year since the death of his wife. Krippendor is due to give a speech detailing findings of his search for a lost African tribe. He's accepted the grant money but instead of research, he's used it to pay the household bills. In a momentary brainstorm, he decides to create the tribe in his back yard using his own kids. Krippendorf vaults into prominence as an anthropological superstar. He also attractes a groupie: new faculty member Veronica (Jenna Elfman).
 Keifer Sutherland (New Line Cinema). |
Dark City ( out of four) is fascinating, visionary filmmaking that captures the sensation of dreaming and being unable to wake up. This film seems to unfold inside a nightmare, one which, like all nightmares, defies logic and makes frightening and unexpected leaps. The dreamer is John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), who wakes up in the bathtub of a hotel room to discover that he may be a serial killer of prostitutes, being hunted by the police. There is a dead hooker in the bedroom - but Murdoch has no memory of killing her. Even more frightening is the fact that teams of wraith-like men - bald, pale, dressed in black frock coats and fedoras - seem to be after him. So is a wormy doctor (Kiefer Sutherland).
 Jason Lee, left, Mili Avital and David Schwimmer (Universal Pictures). |
In the amusing Kissing a Fool ( out of four), David Schwimmer of TV's Friends plays a character 180 degrees from the vulnerable, sensitive Ross of Friends. He's Max, a foul-mouthed, self-centered Chicago sports announcer and all-around Lothario. He scores more often than the Cubs and the White Sox, put together. Then Max meets Samantha Andrews (Mili Avital), a smart, attractive book editor. Sparks fly, even though the two have almost nothing in common. After a whirlwind three-week romance, the two become engaged. But Max has a horrifying thought: I won't be able to sleep with any woman but Sam for the rest of my life! What if Sam isn't the RIGHT woman? He devises a devious test, asking his best friend, a novelist named Jay (Jason Lee), to seduce Sam. If she succumbs, he'll call off the engagement.
 Maxwell Caufield and Daryl Hannah (Paramount Pictures). |
"It seems like everybody is getting stupider and stupider," a couple of different characters observe in The Real Blonde ( out of four). Yet, as this quirky and funny new film shows, it's not a terminal condition. People survive their own idiocy, though there are inevitably victims along the way. Joe (Matthew Modine), for example, wants desperately to be an actor, though he spends most of his time in a tux, working as a waiter for a martinet-like caterer (Christopher Lloyd). He lives with Mary (Catherine Keener), a make-up artist - and bridles that, after six years together, she still forces him to wear condoms (rather than using some other form of birth control). Joe's pal Bob (Maxwell Caulfield) has just landed a role on a soap opera. An inveterate womanizer, Bob thinks he will achieve happiness when he finally finds a woman who is a real blonde - as opposed to the bottled kind he usually encounters.
The symbol for Hollywood Pictures, which is releasing An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (
out of four), is a sphinx. Hollywood Pictures' reputation is such, however, that the saying in the movie industry is, "If it's sphinx, it stinks." No further proof is needed than this dreadful film. Alan Smithee is the name a director puts on a film when the studio or producer changes it so egregiously that the director doesn't want his own name attached. The joke - and I use that term advisedly - is that, in this film, the director of the movie that's been ruined by the producer and studio actually is named Alan Smithee. So he steals the film so no one can see it.
 Marlon Wayans in 'Senseless.' |
In Senseless ( out of four) Outmugging even Marlon Brando as mad Dr. Moreau, Marlon Wayans plays an economics major so desperate for money that he takes part in a college lab experiment, conducted by Brad Dourif. Wayans shoots up with green liquid that heightens his senses - all of them. Naturally, this causes some tricky situations. Have we seen this before? Here's another comedy about a substance that supernaturally alters its hero's life - a premise that also sustained Jerry Lewis's Nutty Professor, not to mention Eddie Murphy's remake.
 Elisabeth Shue and Woody Harrelson in 'Palmetto.' |
Another film noir chump meets blond poison in the Florida-set Palmetto ( out of four). Hard-luck felon Woody Harrelson teams with Elizabeth Shue to try and pull off her idea of faking the kidnapping of her stepdaughter (Chloe Sivigny) in hopes that the teen's rich, dying father will ante up $500,000. While Harrelson and particularly Shue deliver some surprising acting, the film is done in when the schemers' plot inevitably goes awry. It's indicative of how crazy matters get when ex-journalist Harrelson gets hired to run the police press office as his caper disintegrates.
 Nick Nolte and Julie Christie (Sony). |
Like Tiffany jewels in a Woolworth setting, talented veterans Julie Christie and Nick Nolte outshine Alan Rudolph's mediocre film Afterglow ( out of four). They play a Montreal couple whose marriage is a sham. A terrible family secret separates them. Jonny Lee Miller and Lara Flynn Boyle play young lovers who complicate matters.
 Dan Aykrod, left, and John Goodman (ABC). |
Eighteen years ago, The Blues Brothers film introduced us to Elwood and Jake Blues, and showcased a bevy of R&B legends and a huge pile of crashed police cruisers. Now a sequel has arrived, Blues Brothers 2000 ( out of four), offering more of the same. And less. Dan Aykroyd stars, with newcomers John Goodman and Joe Morton. More important is the music by Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and others. The late John Belushi is missed.
 Jon Morrison, left, Ray Winstone (Sony). |
Nil By Mouth ( out of four) offers a harrowing look at a working-class family beset by drugs, alcohol and abuse. Starring Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles. Directed by Gary Oldman.
 Chow Yun-Fat (Columbia/Tristar). |
Chow Yun-Fat makes his English-language debut as a reluctant assassin who tries to do the right thing in The Replacement Killers ( out of four). Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino co-stars as a passport forger who inadvertently becomes Lee's accomplice, as they flee mobsters and the cops in this violent, high-energy U.S. action film, in the Hong Kong tradition. Michael Rooker and Jurgen Prochnow also co-star.
 Robert Duvall (October Films). |
Another fire-and-brimstone evangelist takes a wayward turn in Robert Duvall's The Apostle ( out of four) - but his central transgression isn't sex. In this case, Euliss "Sonny" Dewey (Duvall) picks up a Little League bat and connects with the head of his wife's lover, an RBI swing that puts the latter on what his assailant terms "the road to glory." Also contributing to Sonny's snap: the seizing of his ministry by his fed-up spouse (Farrah Fawcett). But this is a Duvall platform all the way. The Apostle is one of many movies over 35 years that will come to define his marvelous career.
 Bill Pullman and Kim Dickens (GNS). |
Zero Effect ( out of four) drones on for two hours unraveling a convoluted blackmail plot of zero interest. Working this case is a reclusive alleged genius who, says his overworked subordinate (Ben Stiller), can solve any mystery through a mix of intuition and interrogatory prowess: Enter this Howard Hughes-like sleuth, and it turns out to be Bill Pullman. Effect's blackmail victim is a timber tycoon, played by Ryan O'Neal, and cast as the obligatory mystery woman is Kim Dickens.
 Rose McGowan and Peter O'Toole (Demension Films). |
Until it coughs up a ridiculously convoluted explanation of why an isolated town in Colorado suddenly goes deader than a weekday matinee of The Postman, Phantoms ( out of four) delivers the shivers. There are corpses that look as if they expired from a virulent case of varicose veins. A monster moth sucks the brains, eyes and sundry delicate tissue out of a victim's head. Drains in a deserted inn glug-glug ominously. That's stuff that can really goose those pimples. Then Peter O'Toole arrives in a part akin to that stuffy guy who demonstrates the Time Warp in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
 Embeth Davidtz and Kenneth Branagh (Polygram Films). |
The Gingerbread Man, a neo-noir thriller that unwinds with off-kilter promise, is the big yawn ( out of four). What makes it noteworthy is that it's a misbegotten merger between ever-adventurous auteur Robert Altman and best-selling author John Grisham, who provided the story idea. The ultimate cinematic iconoclast meets the ultracommercial purveyor of the popular novel. Sad to say, the result is an underwhelming spin on a situation that's as old as pulp fiction itself: A skirt-chasing man thinks with a body part other than his brain when a dame in distress comes calling.
 Four members of the Spice Girls (AFP). |
If what you really really want is a mindless hyperactive romp about a quintet of British songbirds with flippy hair, flirty costumes, monster shoes and minute talent, then enter Spice World ( out of four). The thong-thin plot finds the girls in London preparing for their first live concert. Fame is their cage, and dictatorial manager (Richard E. Grant in hair-tearing overdrive) is their keeper. Tailing the cavernous Spice Bus are a film producer (George Wendt of Cheers), a documentary crew and a sneaky tabloid photographer. Elton John is the first of many awkward star cameos. Can the Spice Girls act beyond their assigned personas? World doesn't stop spinning long enough to answer.
 Christian Slater, left, and Morgan Freeman struggle in 'Hard Rain' (Paramount Pictures). |
Hard Rain out of four) is pure water torture. Raindrops — or something harder — must have been falling on screenwriter Graham Yost's head when he dreamed up this action washout. Morgan Freeman, who masterminds the heist that goes bad, chases armored-car guard Christian Slater, who has stashed the $3 million for safekeeping. On the side of the law: Surly sheriff Randy Quaid, who also has his eyes on the money, and his doltish deputies. Local babe Minnie Driver bobs by now and then to entertain the buoys.
 Denzel Washington in 'Fallen' (Warner Bros.). |
Denzel Washington has Fallen ( out of four), and he can't get up. Neither can his otherworldly suspense thriller. The film could have been much better had its makers managed to crank up the creepy quotient without slipping into silliness. Washington plays a cop tracking down a criminal's malevolent spirit as it latches onto different host bodies. The demon goes on a slaying spree, leaving elaborate clues while colleagues start to suspect Washington of the murders. It takes way too long for Washington to realize this is no ordinary villain, and by the time he does, you'll have a devil of a time caring.
Thrillers don't get sexier, trickier or stranger than Live Flesh ( 
out of four). Director Pedro Almodovar's tale of love, lust and lies in modern-day Madrid is frankly erotic and, frankly, fascinating. Loosely based on a novel by British mystery writer Ruth Rendell, Live Flesh focuses on five lovelorn characters — two policemen, their wives and an aimless hero with very bad luck. A single ricochet gunshot propels the plot and dramatically alters the lives of the quintet. The result is a vengeful, five-way battle of wits.
 Howie Long in a scene from 'Firestorm' (20th Century Fox). |
Hokey smoky. That just about sums up Firestorm ( out of four), a not-so-towering inferno of action nonsense and overheated mayhem. Strutting about as Mr. Hot Stuff is Howie Long, the ex-football star who is being honed as a good-guy leading man, tackling a clutch of escaped cons posing as fellow forest firefighters. Long, a tall piece of limber timber, is able to toss a heavy ax as if it were a Frisbee, jump out of helicopters, punch out lowlife scum and banter with the lady folk. Now if he ever developed a solid screen persona, he might really be something.
 Emily Watson and Daniel Day-Lewis play former lovers in Ireland (Universal City Studios). |
Northern Ireland isn't exactly untrod upon territory in movies, but The Boxer ( out of four) has an attractive star pairing and an uncommon sports dimension to counteract possible delusions of grandeur on the part of its studio. Teaming Daniel Day-Lewis with Breaking the Waves' Emily Watson, The Boxer completes Day-Lewis' Irish trilogy with filmmaker Jim Sheridan, though this film has neither In the Name of the Father's rooting interest nor the overwhelming human interest that helped My Left Foot win two major Oscars. But as a grown-up drama of occasional power, it serves.
 Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett (Fox Searchlight Pictures). |
The movie is called Oscar and Lucinda ( out of four), so now you know whom it's asking us to love - yet Oscar and Lucinda do their part to engender 2 1/4 hours of cinematic sprawl by not even meeting until 40 long-haul minutes have passed on screen. Starring Ralph Fiennes as an English bumpkin and Cate Blanchett as an Australian heiress-feminist, this epic is set up to trace two life stories, but there's a lack of dramatic focus, and the leads fail to evince any particular chemistry.
 Julie Delpy, left, and Tom Everett Scott (Hollywood Pictures). |
In one of the better gags in An American Werewolf in Paris ( ), a decaying corpse is shown sticking her fingers in her mouth to whistle for a cab. But no whistle comes out. Instead, the pressure makes blood squirt from her cheek like water from a fountain. If that doesn't sound funny to you, for heaven's sake, stay away from this movie - especially if the moon is full. Tom Everett Scott, so likable in That Thing You Do!, is charmless here as Andy, who meets Serafine (the lovely Julie Delpy) on a tour of Paris. Too bad she's a werewolf.
 The soundtrack cover to 'Jackie Brown.' |
"Leisurely" isn't a word one associates with Quentin Tarantino movies, but at 154 minutes, Jackie Brown ( out of four) takes its time. Tarantino's first feature since Pulp Fiction gets boosts from the filmmaker's typically attitude-laden dialogue and plot twists. A great cast is well-utilized in some cases and wasted in others, with the mistress of '70s screen action - Pam Grier herself - rating the showcase title role. Samuel L. Jackson plays a gunrunner, and Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton stir up the mix for a bundle of bloody ho-ho-hos.
 Kevin Costner directs and stars in the futuristic adventure film 'The Postman' (Warner Bros.). |
Star/director Kevin Costner's futuristic folly The Postman ( ) is so loopy that, for a while, one wants to shield it from a critical storm that has already begun. Unfortunately, "a while" is here a wildly subjective term; this silly vanity project runs just under three hours. The film is set in the year 2013 and trades on the abiding love citizens of late 20th century society had for the U.S. Postal Service and letter writing in general. Wouldn't The E-Mail Man have been more apt?
 Anne Heche, Robert De Niro, center, and Dustin Hoffman in 'Wag the Dog' (New Line Cinema). |
For the millions unaware of the recent U.S. war with Albania, Barry Levinson's mild but fitfully amusing political satire Wag the Dog () is a full briefing. Its premise: The president has sexually accosted an underage White House visitor in the Oval Office, and a press-distracting war must be feigned. This imposingly cast lark (Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Anne Heche) has both charms and limitations. Dog's off-the-cuff tone works against our taking it too seriously, yet its story hook can't be taken seriously at all.
 Jack Nicholson, left, Greg Kinnear and Jill the dog in 'Good' (TriStar Pictures). |
The full octane Jack Nicholson, pulsating eyebrows and all, is back in writer-director James L. Brooks' As Good as It Gets ( ). In this year's Jerry Maguire, Helen Hunt delivers one of the year's most appealing performances as a Brooklyn single mother who is obsessive-compulsive Nicholson's favorite waitress. She alone is the one person he seems to like, a status not extended to his gay apartment neighbor, played by Greg Kinnear. One's sole regret is that this is only Brooks' second film since Broadcast News, 10 years ago this month. Gems like these aren't fashioned overnight.
 Ernie Hudson plays the 'good guy' helping Leslie Nielsen in 'Mr. Magoo' (AP). |
Disney offers a disclaimer at the end of Mr. Magoo (
). In essence: No harm is meant to those blind or sight-impaired by the clunky comedy's depiction of a myopic old moneybags. But when are they going to apologize to the rest of us? The movie is an insult to the intelligence of the entire human race. The crime-caper story line, which feels like it was made up as the cameras rolled, concerns a stolen ruby that plops unknowingly into Magoo's possession. Leslie Nielsen, who once made a career of doing clever spoofs, stars.
 The Dalai Lama at age 5, left, with the Master of the Kitchen (Touchstone Pictures). |
Martin Scorsese has surprised a lot of people by making Kundun (), a sumptuously shot pageant about the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. The film is, in many ways, a remarkable achievement but also a singularly undynamic entry in the director's canon. The truly meditative portrait is a straightforward, easily comprehensible mood piece about a 2-year-old's eventual ascension to Tibetan leadership and his subsequent exile in 1959.
 A scene from'Titanic' (20th Century Fox). |
James Cameron's three-hour Titanic ( out of four) can be picked at but, unlike its subject, not broken apart. To those seeking the full movie experience and the return of showmanship, welcome to one-stop Christmas shopping. With its every neon frame reflecting a reported $200 million budget, Titanic nearly exclusively recalls the reserved-seat "event" attractions of the mid-1950s to mid-'60s. Though ship and ice don't meet until 100 minutes in, Titanic is the one long movie in recent memory that you can easily sail through with minimum wristwatch checks.
 Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh star in the latest James Bond installment (United Artist Pictures). |
James Bond gets stirred and shaken in Tomorrow Never Dies ( out of four), though always in tired variations on 007 action chestnuts. Lead Pierce Brosnan seems distracted, and even the standard pre-credits production number falls flat before the main story begins with the mysterious sinking of a British naval vessel off Vietnam. The movie's one inspiration is its choice of villain: an international media mogul (Jonathan Pryce) who makes pernicious use of a worldwide satellite. When he and his wife (Teri Hatcher) finally show up 30 or 40 minutes in, the story begins to move.
 Nathan Lane in 'Mouse Hunt' (DreamWorks). |
Mouse Hunt ( out of four) mostly squeaks by thanks to the considerable mugging prowess of its leads players, Lee Evans and Nathan Lane. The opening scene puts the comic bait in the trap: A pair of bickering brothers struggle to lug their father's coffin when the box slips. The stiff shoots across the street like a human javelin and sails headfirst into a sewer. Wham, bam, RIP, man.
 Matthew McConaughey plays a lawyer (DreamWorks). |
Steven Spielberg, that esteemed (and sometimes demeaned) captain of popular cinematic culture, dons his serious sailing cap again as he steers an unwieldy though ultimately stirring vessel known as Amistad ( out of four). At least no one can accuse the guy of playing it safe. The narrative perils are daunting in this little-known true tale of a bloody slave-ship rebellion in 1839 and its jumbled aftermath in the U.S. judicial system.
 David Arquette and Courteney Cox reprise characters in 'Scream 2' (Dimension Films). |
LOS ANGELES - Audiences are expected to flock to theaters this weekend for the opening of Scream 2, the sequel to last year's smash hit slasher film. The key to the surprising $103 million success of the original Scream came in its appeal to an overlooked segment of the horror audience: girls. The plot featured smart, strong and sassy female heroes who crush the cute-boy killer. The elements are in place again this time around. Add an appealing cast featuring Party of Five's Neve Campbell and Friends' Courteney Cox and Scream 2 is likely to do as well or better than the original.
 Alex D. Linz takes over for Macaulay Culkin in the 'Home Alone' series (20th Century Fox). |
Staying home alone is definitely a better idea than seeing Home Alone 3 ( out of four), the second sequel to the biggest hit comedy in history. In writer/producer John Hughes' latest shameless reworking of his original brutish blockbuster, there are no surprises, just four spies instead of two burglars trying to get into a little boy's house. Twice the bad guys, half the laughs.
 Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley (Universal Studios). |
In For Richer or Poorer ( out of four) Kirstie Alley and Tim Allen are shallow New York socialites on the verge of divorce who become tax-fraud fugitives and pretend to be simple Amish folk. Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert they're not. Heck, Ralph and Alf they're not. Instead of Hooterville, they end up in Intercourse, Pa. - a name just crying out for cheap laughs. Which is why, when sex-deprived Allen passes the town-limits sign, he mumbles, "Not lately."
 Woody Allen and Elisabeth Shue (Fine Line Pictures). |
After nearly three decades of Woody Allen movies, it seems too obvious to state that the funnier they are, the better they are. And yet, this truism has particular relevance to Deconstructing Harry ( out of four), a daring movie so angry and abrasive that more laughs (or fewer botched laugh attempts) might have made a tempering difference. Allen plays Harry, with one ex (Kirstie Alley) striving to keep their son away from him. Certain echoes from Allen's own tabloid ferment get channeled through bombastic speakers here.
 Matt Damon stars in 'Good Will Hunting' (Miramax). |
Good Will Hunting ( out of four) generates no small amount of good will itself, in part because it extricates Robin Williams from a depressing career rut. But who asked Williams to suddenly turn into Mr. Rogers? Yet the headline story from this slice of honestly earned sentiment is Matt Damon, who delivers the year's No. 1 breakthrough performance directly atop his agreeable high-profile turn in John Grisham's The Rainmaker - both after a career of nearly a decade's duration.
 Sigourney Weaver, left, and Winona Ryder (20th Century Fox). |
Science and studio accountants have found a way to bring Ellen Ripley back in Alien Resurrection ( out of four), even though Sigourney Weaver's character died in Alien3. The new film takes place two centuries after Alien3 ended after Ripley has been cloned to develop relatively benign lab versions of the reptilian pit bulls we moviegoers long ago learned to fear. Weaver obviously knows her role by now, but Winona Ryder is as much of an action hero as Julie Nixon would be, going way out of her element.
 Robin Williams in the Disney remake 'Flubber' (Walt Disney Pictures). |
In its never-ending quest to avoid coming up with a new idea, Disney has taken yet another of its boomer classics, 1961's The Absent Minded Professor, and remodeled it into a muddled mediocrity called Flubber ( out of four). But oops. They flubbed it. Writer/producer John "Home Alone" Hughes and director Les Mayfield manage to squeeze the very bounce out of what should have been a can't-miss update. But whereas 101 Dalmatians unleashed Glenn Close's fatally attractive villainy, Robin Williams is given no room to stretch. He's stuck mooning over a romance that will bore youngsters.
 Stephen Dillane, left, and Woody Harrelson (Miramax). |
Reflecting a time and place when events changed the mood in a flash, Welcome to Sarajevo ( out of four) has a tone that's not easily pigeonholed. A low-budget release partly funded by British TV's Channel Four, it nonetheless features a major Hollywood star (Woody Harrelson). Shot in semidocumentary fashion, it builds to a more visceral climax than one initially expects. Loosely structured, it keeps its focus despite lots of dramatic wiggle room.
 Matt Damon, left and Danny DeVito (Paramount Pictures). |
John Grisham's The Rainmaker is John Grisham's The Rainmaker ( out of four) in its ankle-deep film version, a sign that too many screen misfires have seeded the clouds for its director/screenwriter. This dramatically slick, visually sleek crowd-pleaser would once have been ballyhooed as Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker (italics optional).
 John Cusack, left and Kevin Spacey (Warner Bros.). |
Were an objective observer to stumble into director Clint Eastwood's new murder/courtroom drama without having read its scintillating source, the result would likely be a hanging-judge verdict. An oppressively long cinematic oddball that takes ineffectual byways into the Savannah, Ga., passing parade? What is this? Regrettably, it's the movie version of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil ( out of four), a book still thumping its chest on the hardback best seller list after more than three years.
 Ian Holm and Sarah Polley (Fine Line Features). |
On a day when John Grisham's The Rainmaker is likely to have its amiable slickness rewarded at box offices everywhere, a Canadian import dealing far more provocatively with lawsuit fallout is finally opening exclusively in New York City for its premiere U.S. run. Adapted by internationally acclaimed writer/director Atom Egoyan and graced by another gripping Ian Holm performance, this adaptation of Russell Banks' novel deals with events before and after a school bus disaster that kills 14 children in a British Columbia community.
 Bruce Willis stars in 'The Jackal,' opening Friday (Universal Studios). |
In The Jackal ( out of four), a handsome and only functional variation on 1973's The Day of the Jackal, a hired killer (Bruce Willis) attempts to publicly shoot a prominent American. A bureau honcho (Sidney Poitier) and Russian intelligence officer (Diane Venora) get wind of the scheme and enlist the aid of an imprisoned IRA operative (Richard Gere) to identify the mercenary. The international pursuit grows borderline monotonous but there is a jump in pacing during the Washington, D.C., climax.
 Bill Murray, in this file photo, stars as a video store owner in his new film (AP). |
There's a mild moment of mirth at the beginning of The Man Who Knew Too Little ( out of four) when Bill Murray, cast as an Iowan, begins heckling a British customs officer in typical Murray what-me-worry fashion. Then comes an audience letdown of, oh, 90 minutes. Murray plays a fish out of Des Moines in London, and though there's a lot of mold on this premise already, the manner in which Murray is engaged would seem to have possibilities. But it doesn't.
 Nastassja Kinski and Welsey Snipes (New Line Cinema). |
In One Night Stand ( out of four), British director/writer/co-producer/composer Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) jazzily riffs on a familiar theme - the cheating spouse - with the hypnotic ease of a Miles Davis trumpet solo. The acting hits all the right notes, especially Wesley Snipes as a married man drawn into a fling with a stranger (Nastassja Kinski) and Robert Downey Jr. in a stripped-down portrait of a gay man dying of AIDS.
 Anya, left, and Dmitri (20th Century Fox). |
Sumptuous Anastasia ( out of four), directed by veteran 'toon-smiths Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (An American Tail), could make a dent in Disney's longtime domination in feature animation. Flawed but not fatally, this ambitious epic revolves around the mystery of whether the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas survived the family's massacre during the Russian revolution. The film's strength lies not just with its haunting melodies, pretty pictures and kid-friendly sidekicks, but in an emotionally gripping script.
 Casper Van Dien fights off invading giant insects (Tippett Studios). |
Director Paul Verhoeven is back with the uproariously cheeky Starship Troopers ( out of four), a battle of the bugs that flips sci-fi on its ear and even ruder places. The premise: Only an army of sweet-tempered, fresh-faced fascists has the moxie to challenge hordes of celestial arthropods. Full of physically stunning mannequins, the film actually wouldn't work as well if stronger actors than Dina Meyer, Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien conveyed its Betty-Veronica-Archie dynamics. This twisted space opera serves up carcasses in six-digit figures but is foremost a sendup for the ages.
 Helena Bonham Carter, right, plots against Alison Elliott (Miramax). |
Helena Bonham Carter, who has gone through more corsets than a Frederick's mannequin, lustily doffs her antique lingerie in the exquisitely mounted romantic gem The Wings of the Dove ( out of four). Instead of piling on distracting historical details and background, Dove trusts the audience to notice behavioral clues and fill in the blanks. Bonham Carter may be in a costume-drama rut, but she is an anti-heroine of the first degree, whose motives are understandable yet cruel.
 Rowan Atkinson in 'Mr.Bean' (Gramercy Pictures). |
We'll forgive England for the Spice Girls. Maybe even Benny Hill, Joan Collins, Boy George, Fergie and that habit of pouring milk in tea. But with Bean's ( out of four) arrival, it might mean war. There hasn't been a British import so undesirable since potted meat. The story is just an excuse for a graceless string of skits that would be somewhat tolerable if the self-centered boor were the least bit appealing or sympathetic.
 Dustin Hoffman, left, and John Travolta (Warner Bros.). |
Mad City ( out of four) is a wanna-be event movie that merely reinvents the wheel, though the result is actually closer to a square with blunted edges. TV newsman Dustin Hoffman witnesses security guard John Travolta's reluctant commandeering of a small-town museum. Hoffman suddenly smells New York, but he's not the only one with an angle; a network news star (Alan Alda) sees a chance to squelch a longtime nemesis by horning in on the story. As an expose of broadcast journalism abuses, the Mad message isn't exactly fresh news.
 Jurnee Smollett stars as 10-year-old Eve Batiste (Trimark Pictures). |
Samuel L. Jackson works a lot, displaying his ever-widening range, and here he is acting in and co-producing an uncommonly original memory movie, Eve's Bayou ( out of four). Indeed, Eve's milieu is fresh and specific enough to make even Jackson subordinate to Kasi Lemmons, the writer (and sometimes actress) who dreamed up this story for her directorial debut.
 Richard Gere, right, and newcomer Bai Ling in 'Red Corner' (David James, MGM). |
Richard Gere's latest film, Red Corner ( out of four), is more like an exotic variation on the standard Hollywood courtroom drama than an event picture likely to rattle resonant political sabers. As a skeptical court-appointed Beijing attorney who defends Gere, a U.S. entertainment lawyer framed for murder, newcomer Bai Ling steals the show. Gere's orchestrated setup also sets up the movie's apparent moral: Beware of one-nighters with comely nightclub performers whose governments are weary of encroaching Western values.
 Danny Glover in the new film 'Switchback' (Paramount Pictures). |
SwitchBack ( out of four) has a tad more going for it than you'd assume from its nondescript title. Paramount Pictures' second serial killer treatise in a month (after Kiss the Girls) is multiple movies in one, and a couple do generate passing interest. For the longest time, most viewers will be thoroughly at a loss as to where the story is going. A baby sitter is murdered. An Amarillo, Texas, sheriff (R. Lee Ermey) is facing a tough re-election. An ex-railroad worker (Danny Glover) picks up a Southwestern hitchhiker (Jared Leto). An FBI agent with a gloomy secret (Dennis Quaid) shows up back in Amarillo, claiming recent murders there are the work of a serial killer.
 Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman in 'Gattaca' (Columbia/TriStar). |
An institutional hush envelops the compelling cautionary fable Gattaca ( out of four) as if it were muffled by a velvet lab coat. That sound is of a sterile future, populated with superbeings haughty as Calvin Klein models in their designer genes, as it smothers flawed individualism. DNA determines one's place in society. Couples can order a child like a Big Mac. "Faith" babies born through the usual sexual means are labeled second-class citizens, or in-valids. Ethan Hawke is one of these "de-gene-erates." But he's clever enough to make a black-market switch - until someone is murdered and a stray eyelash points to an in-valid - Hawke - as the culprit.
 Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz in 'A Life Less Ordinary' (Darren Michaels). |
Small is better. Less is more. And, with rare exceptions, don't put angels in your movies unless they are named Clarence. Those are the kinds of lessons that tend to be forgotten when indie filmmakers move to the majors. Case in point: A Life Less Ordinary ( out of four), a lead-footed romantic fantasy that tarts up the usual kidnapped-heiress high jinks with everything from a tequila-soaked song-and-dance number to a bizarre clay-figure animated sequence straight out of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
 Florence Hoath and fairies in 'FairyTale: A True Story' (Paramount). |
FairyTale: A True Story ( out of four) duly rolls out the dew-dappled pastoral turf and expends much genteel period dialogue to ponder whether woodland sprites exist. Lovely to look at, a semi-chore to sit through, this flick could have used an extra blast of pixie dust. This should-have-been enchanting story about two little girls whose photographs of supposed fairies caused a sensation in war-weary England in 1917 is fatally short on pure wonderment and characters to care about.
 Brad Pitt, right, and Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk in 'Seven Years in Tibet' (TriStar Pictures). |
Brad Pitt tutoring the Dalai Lama sounds like a match made in Oz. But solemnity, not absurdity, is the big problem with Seven Years in Tibet ( out of four), a numbingly earnest bio of sorts about Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (Pitt), who wants to scale the daunting Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas. But World War II intervenes, landing Harrer in a prison camp, and this turn of events puts Tibet at odds with itself. Here's a movie about the Dalai Lama in which the latter doesn't show up for 75 minutes. Harrer finally succeeds in breaking free, embarking on an arduous two-year trek that leads him to the young spiritual leader.
 Scientist Z. Randall (Harland Williams) finds himslef teamed with chimp Ulysses (Raven in RocketMan (Walt Disney Pictures). |
One small step for an unknown comic. One giant stumble for comedy-kind. Disney's earthbound RocketMan ( out of four), in which an unlikely astronaut joins the first manned mission to Mars, marks the inauspicious launch of jug-eared geek savant Harland Williams as a leading man. Consider this fair warning, like learning that the intergalactic rattletrap Mir is flying over your house. The guy's one distinction: Instead of being totally stupid, he's stupid-smart and bumbles his way to success. When one of the Mars team gets injured (insert "It wasn't me!"), NASA computer-whiz Williams earns the right to realize his dream of being an astronaut.
 Parker Posey in 'The House of Yes' (Miramax). |
Unless you think drawing-room re-enactments of JFK's assassination beat Pictionary as a party game, it's best to say no to the achingly arch comic satire The House of Yes ( out of four). It's Thanksgiving and the 20th anniversary of Daddy's disappearance on Nov. 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was shot. Certifiably nutty daughter Jackie-O (Posey) has been obsessed with her namesake ever since, pink pillbox hat, pearl choker and all. On the other hand, her younger brother (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is a dim bulb whose main claim to fame is dropping out of a prestigious college. On this dark and stormy night, however, Jackie-O's very close twin Marty (Josh Hamilton) is bringing home a surprise - his new fiancee, Tori Spelling.
 Mark Wahlberg in 'Boogie Nights' (Front Line Cinema). |
The pop 1970s were typified in part by cheesy fashions, ephemeral music and a regular diet of daring, cutting-edge movies that arguably made that decade Hollywood's richest. Blistering Boogie Nights ( out of four) recaptures the spirit of that time on all three counts, devoting its energies to a tackily bedecked disco era when the porno-pic industry briefly and naively harbored mainstream hopes. Shown this past week at the New York Film Festival and riding a hugely deserved critical wave, R-rated Nights is a satirically sharp but bittersweet treatment of an X-rated milieu.