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'A Tale of Autumn'(10/1/98)
Directed by Betty Thomas
Starring Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen

Once you've acquired a taste for the meditative films of Eric Rohmer, he rarely lets you down. "A Tale of Autumn" is no exception. His characters may do nothing but sit around and talk things over endlessly, but what absorbing conversations they have. In the French director's latest film, the last installment of his "Tales of the Four Seasons," they are talking about Magali (Beatrice Romand), a widowed vintner in her forties who is beginning to feel the loneliness of her situation. She confesses to a friend that she would like to meet a man. The machinations begin. Both her happily married friend, Isabelle (Marie Riviere), and her son's girlfriend set about setting her up with mixed, but intriguing results for all. As always, Rohmer has an uncannily precise sense of how people interact and it is a pleasure to see him turn his attention to the romantic sensibilities of the middle-aged. It is rare indeed to find a film that realistically depicts a woman in her forties, let alone a woman in her forties searching for love. In one masterful scene, Magali eschews the impatience of youth, choosing not to run after the object of her possible affection, but to go home until another day and a more reasonable hour, for if it is meant to be, she reasons, it will eventually be. A mature film about mature people, "A Tale of Autumn" makes fascinating work of the autumn of its characters' lives.
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (12/16/99)
Directed by Anthony Minghella
Starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon

The indolent, sensual glamour of Italy in the late 1950s—a playground for young, rich American WASP expatriates—is beautifully captured in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," writer-director Anthony Minghella's first film since "The English Patient." It is there that Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) first lays eyes on Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), a charming, jazz-loving playboy with a beautiful girlfriend (Gwyneth Paltrow), thoughtless self-confidence and money to burn. Dickie's father in New York has paid Ripley—whom he's mistaken as a friend of his son's from Princeton—to go to Italy to persuade the golden boy to come home. But the impoverished, covetous Ripley, a gifted mimic and quick study, falls in love with Dickie's lifestyle—and with Dickie himself. Minghella puts us inside Ripley's bedazzled head, inviting us to share his envy and giddy excitement even as we recognize his warped, sycophantic need to be someone he's not.

The depth of Ripley's sickness is revealed midway through the film, when he kills Dickie and assumes his identity. In that moment his life becomes a desperate, criminal improvisation. But it is here—when the thriller plot kicks in—that the movie constricts into something more clinical and conventional than its wonderfully seductive first half promised.

Damon's Ripley is considerably different from the charming sociopath in Patricia Highsmith's novel or the smooth lothario played by Alain Delon in the 1960 French thriller "Purple Noon." Both his homosexuality and his conscience have been outed, turning him into a tortured, self-hating young man. What was a cool, premeditated murder in the book becomes a spontaneous crime of passion—making Ripley's subsequent evil harder to buy. In taking a more moral approach to Highsmith's famously amoral story, Minghella ends up diminishing Ripley. He's been turned into a case study—a gripping one, to be sure, but the giddy thrill is gone.
DAVID ANSEN
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'Tango' (2/24/99)
Directed by Carlos Saura
Starring Miguel Angel Sola, Mia Maestro

Spanish director Carlos Saura has long been fascinated by the sensuous power of dance and his new film, "Tango," is another exploration of the theme. Similar in approach to Saura's biggest U.S. success, "Carmen" (1983), "Tango" is a tale of love and obsession set within a theatrical context, although in this case it is the Argentinean dance, rather than flamenco, that takes center stage. Set in Buenos Aires, the sketchy story involves a director, Mario Suarez (Miguel Angel Sola), who throws himself into a dance production in order to try and forget a recent and painful break-up with his wife. He gradually falls in love with his young star, Elena (Mia Maestro) who happens to be the girlfriend of a local gangster. But the true star of the film is not to be found in its plot or characters, but in the dramatic dance numbers that speak far more that dialogue ever could. Unlike Sally Potter in her tirelessly self-serving film, "The Tango Lesson," Saura and his cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro ("The Last Emperor," "The Sheltering Sky") have captured the essence of the dance with all its nuances. The result is a film of rare beauty and passion.
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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'Tarzan' (6/15/99)
Directed by Chris Buck, Kevin Lima
Starring (voices) Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver

This Tarzan doesn't just swing through trees. He flips, flies and surfs the branches like a master skateboarder at Venice Beach. There may have been myriad versions of the Ape Man's story, but none has moved like Disney's animated, ultrakinetic "Tarzan." It's a swirling, fluid retelling of the tale that packs an impressive cargo of laughs, thrills and wonders into a watertight 88 minutes. Orphaned in the jungle when his parents are killed, this "hairless wonder" is taken in by a gorilla family with proper American bourgeois sentiments. "I just want you to be happy," says surrogate mom Kala (voice by Glenn Close). Even before he falls in love with Jane and discovers he's a human, Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn) is grappling with his "difference." That's the true subject of this multicultural�actually multispecies�fable. The musical highlight here is a hilarious number when the gorillas�threatened by evil hunters�stumble upon the humans' camp and start an inadvertent jam session using a typewriter and broken dishes. No less terrific is how Minnie Driver's witty, throaty line readings turn Jane into a sexy and substantial heroine. "I'm in a tree with a man who talks to monkeys!" she exclaims. We share her amazement and, like her, wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
DAVID ANSEN
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'Tea With Mussolini' (5/14/99)
Directed by Franco Zefferelli
Starring Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Cher

Though Franco Zefferelli's new movie is based on a chapter of his memoirs, "Tea With Mussolini" is only partly about a young Italian boy taken under the collective wing of a group of expat English and American mother hens in 1930s Tuscany. Most of the film is about the clucksters themselves: Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Lily Tomlin and Cher make up the dream team. But Zefferelli fails to live up to his casting. "Tea With Mussolini" never knows what it wants to be. Is it a coming-of-age tale, a drawing room drama, or a blue-hair comedy? It's all three, and that's too much for one screenplay to handle. The story more or less centers around Luca (first Baird Wallace, then Charlie Lucas, both dull), the illegitimate son of a Florentine businessman for whom the grandmotherly Mary (Plowright) works. Mary takes in Luca when his father rejects him, and she and other members of an English artist colony educate and care for the boy. Meanwhile, the fascists are gaining control of the country. When Luca returns from an Austrian boarding school at 17, World War II has begun. The English women refuse to leave the country, and Luca helps them remain in the style to which they are accustomed. Meanwhile he develops a crush on a Jewish American art dealer and former Zeigfield girl (Cher, in fabulous costumes) who also foolishly stays in Italy. Smith plays Hester, the widow of the British Ambassador and the grand dame of the colony; her snobbery provides delightful, bitchy fun. Dench is Arabella, a painter with all of the desire and personality quirks, but none of the talent, of a master. Tomlin is type-cast as a lesbian archaeologist. But these actresses are always worth seeing in just about anything, as is Tuscany. Together they are able to make up for the meandering plot and lack of dramatic oomph.
TED GIDEONSE
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'Teaching Mrs. Tingle' (8/20/99)
Directed by Kevin Williamson
Starring Helen Mirren and Katie Holmes

By stunt casting Molly Ringwald in a cameo as a high school secretary who takes over the class of a supposedly ill and infamously bitchy history teacher, Kevin Williamson gives his directorial debut "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" historical resonance. Fifteen years ago, Ringwald would have been cast as the film's lead, Leigh Anne Watson, a beautiful, brilliant student wrongly accused of cheating by her nemesis, Mrs. Tingle. But Katie Holmes, Gen Y's Molly, has the part. Williamson fancies himself the new John Hughes—who, if you can't remember back that far, cast Ringwald as the lead in the classics "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," and "Pretty in Pink." With the scripts for "Scream" (1 and 2), "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and "Dawson's Creek," under his belt, Williamson is the current high school generation's zeitgeist auteur: John Hughes played off Gen X's ennui and misdirection, and Williamson has tapped into our current culture's irony, cynicism, and violence.

Unfortunately, "Tingle" isn't up to Williamson's usual standard. He may have been trying to explore the complexities of moral ambiguity, but the film ends up being a simple tale of amoral revenge — made all the more creepy by its highly publicized name change (previously "Killing Mrs. Tingle") in the wake of Columbine. After Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren, a perfect witch) thinks she's caught Leigh Anne cheating, Leigh Anne confronts her teacher with her friends Jo Lynn (Marisa Coughlan) and Luke (Barry Watson) at Tingle's monstrous Victorian house. Things get out of hand, and the three teens end up knocking Tingle unconscious and holding her captive, tied to her bed-posts. Tingle is a mean, manipulative, bitter woman, and Leigh Anne did not deserve the treatment she got. But as events spiral out of control, so does the morality play and our sympathy for Leigh Anne. Holmes, who is adorable and sexy on "Dawson's Creek," pouts with aplomb, but does little more. Nevertheless, there are some very funny moments, and Coughlan is a delight as Leigh Anne's best friend, a dippy wannabe actress capable of stealing every scene she's in—even from Molly Ringwald.
TED GIDEONSE
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Here's a surprise. Joe Eszterhas, the writer who inflicted "Showgirls" and "Basic Instinct" upon the world, redeems himself with this autobiographical tale of Hungarian-born teenager Karchy Jonas (Brad Renfro) struggling to decode the American way of life in early 1960s Cleveland. His mentor in mendacity is a slick, corrupt deejay named Billy Magic, played to sleazy perfection by Kevin Bacon. While the elements in this coming-of-age saga may seem familiar, Eszterhas brings a fresh, immigrant's-eye perspective to his tale. Sensitively directed by Guy Ferland, it features fine turns by Calista Flockhart as the grave, working-class girl Karchy desires and Maximilian Schell as Karchy's father. "Telling Lies" tells bittersweet truths about the moral cost of success in America. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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'Temptress Moon' (6/23/97)
Directed by Kaige Chen
Starring Leslie Cheung, Gong Li

"Temptress Moon" may take place in 1920s China, but its storyline is all 1990s "Melrose Place." Characters stab each other in the backs, develop drug addictions and kill themselves over obsessive love affairs. There's even some overacting. Fun! Problem is, the film intends to be taken seriously. The story is tough to follow, even with several screen's worth of historical notes at its outset. As a boy, Zhongliang (Leslie Cheung) is made a servant for the wealthy family into which his sister has married. He grows up to be a cynical, resentful Shanghai hooligan who seduces married women and then blackmails them. Eventually he attempts to destroy the family that raised him by courting the beautiful heiress (Gong Li) to the fortune. "Temptress Moon" is a maudlin, sumptuous and overly ambitious piece of filmmaking. (on video)
B.J. SIGESMUND
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There's a lot to like about this week's teen flick, 10 Things I Hate About You. In the MTV update of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," an overprotective ob-gyn dad is so terrified of his daughters getting pregnant that he won't let his youngest, a Britney Spears lookalike named Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), even date until her older sister Katarina (Julia Stiles) does. Dad's plan looks like a solid one: But Kat, who favors "angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion," has sworn off the pimple-faced drips of Padua High. Enter Aussie rebel Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger), the only senior man enough to take on Stiles' modern shrew and make this into a romantic comedy. As a recycling of both teen-trend and Shakespeare chic, "10 Things" is pure formula. But thanks to charming performances, particularly from its two stars, the winsome Stiles and a hunky Heath, it gets the recipe right, and the result is surprisingly sweet.
ALISHA DAVIS
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You'd like "Chainsaw" to be campy fun, but after a funny prom-night opener, you're rooting for almost everyone to die. Renee Zellweger is a wallflower terrorized by the family from hell: Leatherface (Robert Jacks) dances with his chain saw while his demented brother Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey) stomps around on his mechanical leg. McConaughey's awful but clearly having a ball — frankly, you feel worse for him in "Contact" — and Zellweger is endearing when she finally tries to save her life. No force on earth, however, could have saved the movie. (on video)
JEFF GILES
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At the heart of "That's the Way I Like It," the charming new film from Singapore director Glen Goei, is Hock (Adrian Pang), who would be a slacker poster boy except they're not called that yet. It's the Seventies in Singapore, and Hock lives at home with his pushy parents, works in a supermarket, and hangs around with his aimless friends. He also has to put up with the constant comparisons his parents make between him and his overachieving younger brother, and endure the slights of a spoiled rich boy, Richard (Pierre Png) and his beautiful girlfriend Julie (Anna Belle Francis).

Everything changes, though, when Hock and his friends discover disco. Hock decides to enter a local dance competition; the first prize of $5,000 is — gasp! — just enough to buy his dream motorcycle. He starts taking dance classes with his childhood friend Wei (Madeline Tan), where he runs into Julie again. Then the big questions begin: Will he abandon Wei for Julie? Will they win the dance contest? Will his family situation blow up around him? Yup, it's Singapore Night Fever. We've seen it all before, but originality is not the point here. The movie pays loving tribute to what Goei calls "a good period — a time of my life that I wanted to document." And so he does, with nice touches that show the director's affectionate view of the time and place. A cameo by Kumar, Singapore's most famous drag queen, as the dance instructor is hilarious, and the music and clothes — the stripes! the tight pants! — just can't miss. A warm-hearted romp that will leave you smiling — and strutting.
ESTHER PAN
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Tom Hanks's first effort behind the camera is a modest ode to joy and to a time (1964) when it was still possible for four fresh-scrubbed boys to form a rock-and-roll band and hurtle to success with a bland trust in the benevolence of the universe. Unlike other actor-directors (Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson), Hanks thinks small. "That Thing You Do!" has the wispiest of plots, a chaste interest in sex that actually seems pre-1964, and nary a villain in sight. You wait for these innocents to be ground up by a soulless music establishment, but the only jerk turns out to be a member of the group, the uncompromising artist-type we're conditioned to think of as the hero. This movie is so unself-consciously wholesome it's almost Gumpian. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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There are jokes at the expense of the handicapped. There are glimpses of anatomy and bodily emissions. Bad things happen to small dogs. But it's all carried off with a good-natured finesse that leaves you more likely to crack up than cringe. As "There's Something About Mary" opens, we meet our antihero, high-school loser Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller) who, through disastrous circumstances, loses out on a dream date with the lovely Mary (Cameron Diaz). A dozen years later, Ted is still obsessed over what might have been, so he hires a sleazy private eye (Matt Dillon) to track down his lost love. The private eye also falls in love with Mary, setting off a hilarious showdown for her affections. If the film has a problem, it's that the Farrelly brothers, co-writers and directors, seem content to bunt for long stretches between home runs. (on video) KENDALL HAMILTON with DEVIN GORDON
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'The Thin Red Line' (12/21/98)
Directed by Terrence Malick
Starring Sean Penn, Nick Nolte

Strikingly unconventional in form, this adaptation of James Jones's 1962 novel about the men who fought in Guadalcanal in World War II juxtaposes beauty and horror to fashion a savage and lyrical cinematic poem. Director Terrence Malick and his storytelling methods are going to frustrate viewers looking for characters they can identify with, and plots with a beginning, middle and end. There's Witt (Jim Caviezel), the idealistic soldier who has gone AWOL to live among the peaceful natives and now must return to battle. Witt's thematic opposite is the cynical warrior Welsh (Sean Penn), who wants nothing more than to achieve numbness in the face of atrocity. We also dip into the raging, resentful mind of Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte), who commands the troop's attack on hill 210 — the movie's bravura centerpiece. "The Thin Red Line" is queasily effective at conveying the sheer physical terror of war, the deafening chaos of combat. It is a film of brilliant pieces and dazzling shots, but it's unable to sustain dramatic tension: it soars and sags, then soars and sags again. But whatever its shortcomings, you know you're in the presence of a radical talent. Malick conjures up visions you'll never be able to shake.
DAVID ANSEN
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'The Third Man' (5/21/99)
Directed by Carol Reed
Starring Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles

Film suspense based on the search for a missing piece can be a dangerous thing. What if the missing villain isn't as evil as we imagined, the treasure not as precious or the long-lost love not as beautiful? The audience will be left feeling unsatisfied, perhaps even deceived. What makes "The Third Man" a lasting success—besides, of course, the breathtaking cinematography and a witty script by Graham Greene—is that it is a carefully crafted filmmaker's lesson in how to satisfy such expectations.

In Carol Reed's 1949 film noir masterpiece, "The Third Man," currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is the missing piece. It is his strange, cryptic smile we are chasing through the labyrinth of post-war Vienna, though he remains an enigma--an expatriate foreigner lost in a bombed-out city, consumed by the corruption of a black-market economy. He is genial and charming, eager to be loved and forgiven, but unwilling—or unable—to choose good over evil. Though Welles is the film's true star and its slippery, amoral core, Joseph Cotton's character, a second rate novelist by the name of Holly Martins, is our protagonist. He arrives, an idealistic if weary American, in a city pulverized by the Second World War. Martins investigates Harry Lime's disappearance, convinced that at the center of the mystery lies truth. If he can only uncover the facts, he will have his childhood friend—and his sense of justice—returned to him. Anna Schmidt, Harry Lime's long-suffering lover, believes ultimately in loyalty. She is a refugee in Vienna, with no friends and no protection, and she holds fast to the idea that if she does not give up on Harry, he will rescue her.

They are both disappointed. Harry is a product of post-war chaos, his loyalty and his sense of right and wrong long since dissipated. All that's left is his charisma and his instinct for survival. That may not be enough for Holly or Anna or anyone else searching for answers in Harry's disappearance, but it perfectly completes the film's ambivalent suspense.
ELIZABETH ANGELL
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Take one part "The Matrix," one part "eXistenZ," throw in a couple of those Star Trek episodes where the crew goes back in time, and you pretty much have the formula for "The Thirteenth Floor." The mean-spirited might call it a poor man's version of "The Matrix" with Craig Bierko standing in for Keanu Reeves, but I call it good, cheesy fun. Douglas Hall (Bierko) is a gentle and visionary computer wizard whose mentor Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is brutally murdered, setting off a bizarre train of events. All signs point to Hall being the culprit—or is he being framed? He certainly stands to gain a great deal, namely ownership of Fuller's company, which has been developing a radical new virtual reality game that simulates 1930s Los Angeles. Oh, and of course there's a girl (the delicious Gretchen Mol) who says she's Fuller's daughter—but is she? The answers, needless to say, lie in the game. The twists and turns in the plot are relatively predictable once you've bought into the clever premise of the film, but there are some nice touches. The scenes set in the past have a subtle sense of unreality to them; everything seems just a little off, as it might in such a simulation. Indeed when Hall returns from his first visit, he complains that the colorization needs work. Bierko, who was so irritatingly one-note in last year's "Sour Grapes," is rather charming here—particularly in his 30s incarnation—and his side kick, Vincent D'Onofrio—almost unrecognizable behind a mane of bleached blond hair—is amusingly off-kilter. If you're still asking yourself that same old question, "What is the nature of reality?," then "The Thirteenth Floor" provides yet another twist on the answer.
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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"This is My Father" is a family project that gets a little too homespun. Created by three Irish-American brothers—writer-director Paul Quinn, cinematographer Declan Quinn and actor Aidan Quinn—the film centers on Kieran Johnson (James Caan), a burned out Chicago school teacher returned to Ireland to search for his roots. What he discovers is the tragic tale of his rebellious young mother, Fiona Flynn (the feisty Moya Farrelly) and his real father, Kieran O'Day (Aidan Quinn). Shifting between past and present, the film has a somewhat hackneyed take on the harm caused by small town hypocrisy and superstition, and the oppression of the Catholic Church. The usual suspects are all present and accounted for: Fiona's high and mighty mother secretly tipples behind closed doors; the village priest is suitably intolerant; and the villagers are an ignorant, curse-throwing lot. There are even a number of eccentric, "Local Hero"-type characters that seem oddly out of place given the somberness of the story. However, the film is ultimately salvaged by the strength of its performances. Both Stephen Rea and Colm Meany eat up the scenery in their cameos; Rea as a fire-breathing visiting priest who gets too much of a kick out of hearing confession, and Meany as the flamboyant, conniving owner of a bed-and-breakfast. But it is Aidan Quinn as a shy farmer in love with the wrong girl who truly anchors the film and provides its emotional center.
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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It's a fairly rare accomplishment to create a suspense film with no suspense whatsoever, but director Michael Oblowitz has succeeded in doing so despite basing "This World, Then the Fireworks" on a Jim Thompson short story. The plot of the movie, involving a psychotic and incestuous brother-and-sister team (Billy Zane and Gina Gershon) that drifts into a life of violent crime, sounds irresistible for fans of film noir. However, the film is so heavily concerned with mood and atmosphere that very few bits and pieces of plot actually survive the 'creative' process. What plot there is generally involves people getting killed very tastelessly and in graphic detail while the film wallows unforgivably in its own violence. (on video)
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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The heist that set the original 1968 "The Thomas Crown Affair" in motion was a $3 million robbery of a Boston bank masterminded by Brahmin millionaire Steve McQueen. How quaint that amount now seems. The new Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) is a self-made billionaire who oversees the elaborate theft of a Monet worth $100 million from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. A man who has never let anyone get close to him, a man so decadent he can afford to wreck a catamaran just for the thrill of it, Crown finally meets his match in the savvy, chic insurance investigator Catherine Banning (Rene Russo), who instantly suspects him. He knows she knows he's the culprit, and she knows he intends to seduce her. What neither of these cutthroat charmers expects is to fall in love.

The tale was, and is, a gold-plated fantasy of conspicuous consumption, and the only way to play it is to revel shamelessly in the erotica of luxury. Which is precisely what director John McTiernan does in his slick, gaudily suave guilty pleasure of a movie, which is filled to the brim with private planes, Caribbean retreats, overdone hairdos and marathon couplings on marble stairways that would leave ordinary mortals black and blue. The emphasis has been changed from larceny to love, and the overt sexuality turned up a notch. Russo has to shed a lot more clothing than Faye Dunaway did; given some of the odd outfits she's got to wear, this was probably a relief. But it's nice to see a Hollywood movie that appreciates a mature female body for a change. And nice to see that "The Thomas Crown Affair" has survived its glossy, glam makeover so well.
DAVID ANSEN
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'The Tigger Movie' (2/10/00)
Directed by Jun Falkenstein
Starring the voices of Jim Cummings, Ken Sansom
(Animated)

It's hard to believe that Disney's newest animated film, "The Tigger Movie," isn't a re-release. With its drab colors, uninspired animation, and the same voices from Disney's older Winnie the Pooh films, "Tigger" has a distinctly late-'60s feel. The only way you can tell it's not is by the show-stopping musical number in which Tigger sings about all of his (imaginary) relatives: Among other bizarre and hilarious possible Tiggers he conjures up is a Jerry Springer-ish Tigger, hosting a talk show. Welcome to Pooh 2000. This new film follows Tigger in his search for a family. Caught up in pre-winter preparations, no one in the Hundred Acre Wood wants to go bouncing with the poster tiger for attention deficit disorder—and as we all know, "bouncing is what Tiggers do best!" When he decides that only another Tigger would want to (or could) bounce with him, he sets out on a quest to find his fellow Tiggers. Unable to recognize that Pooh, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, Kanga, and Roo are his family, Tigger goes on a fruitless journey, bounces his way through a minimal plot, and sings a few cute songs by Richard and Robert Sherman. Ultimately, the film follows the tried-and-true Disney formula and everything works out for the best, with the usually underutilized Roo making a star turn. By following the style of Disney's other Pooh films, most of which were done in the dark days before the company's late-'80s Renaissance, "The Tigger Movie" lacks the color and dazzle of films like "The Little Mermaid" and "Tarzan." In other words, it looks like it was done on the cheap. Fortunately, however, the magical world of Pooh is always delightful to watch, even through a dirty lens.
TED GIDEONSE
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At the start of Patrice Chereau's new film, "Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train," an elderly Parisian artist dies, forcing his family and friends to travel to Limoges for his funeral. On the four-hour train ride a volatile mix of acquaintances interact: an estranged young couple, a pregnant woman, a homosexual love triangle, an old aunt. These bohemian characters — artists, writers, professsionals — play out their family and personal dramas against the backdrop of the moving train. Unexpected events ensue: the car driving the coffin crashes; a young man leaves the train and misses the funeral; a little girl charms the grumpy old brother of the deceased; and a missing son turns up as a glamorous woman, in a standout performance by French heartthrob Vincent Perez. ("I want to play a woman," he told Chereau, and the director obliged by writing the part of Viviane for him.) "Those Who Love Me..." marks a departure for Chereau from the historical drama of his last film, "Queen Margot." He has crafted a decidedly modern story of the complexity of millennial relationships, showcasing love in all its variants, as well as the power of one strong character to influence others during and after his lifetime.

Chereau told Newsweek.com that he wanted to make this movie, based on a true story, because "it is a beautiful story of people so full of life. [On a funeral day], you discover what it's worth to live." As for the contemporary theme, what some have called capturing a modern "vie boheme," Chereau says, "It cannot be a defect to be so modern and real. A director must be able to describe reality in each detail. [This film] is exactly what I see around me." The movie garnered the first good reviews Chereau says he's gotten from French critics, and he's happy with it. "I think it's better done than Queen Margot. I am in agreement with myself." And so are we.
ESTHER PAN
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'A Thousand Acres' (9/22/97)
Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange

There are many ways in which "A Thousand Acres," Jocelyn Moorhouse's film of the Jane Smiley novel, doesn't do justice to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. But anyone who wants to see two of the juiciest performances of the year, shouldn't miss it. As the Cook sisters, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange make an incandescent team in this loose transposition of "King Lear" to the Iowa farmlands. Rose and Ginny are two daughters of Larry Cook (Jason Robards), a powerful Iowa farmer. The third daughter, Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is a lawyer in the city. Tragic events are set off when the patriarch quixotically announces his plans to divide his land among his three offspring. Rose, the mother of two, is a woman fueled by rage, while the childless Ginny, passive and repressed, tries to smooth over the buried antagonisms that are wrenching this deeply dysfunctional family apart. These complex, fully realized women are Smiley's triumph, and Lange and Pfeiffer, playing an eloquent emotional duet, bring them vividly to life. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN (with Corie Brown)
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'Three Kings' (9/29/99)
Directed by David O. Russell
Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg

"Three Kings" keeps you off balance from its first moment. We are thrust into the middle of a vast, barren desert, the colors bleached out, the horizon stretched and distorted by a wide-angle lens. It's 1991, and the Gulf War has just ended. An Iraqi soldier stands at a far distance atop a mound, his hands raised as the armed American soldiers try to estimate the threat he poses. "Are we shooting?" one of them asks, meaning, Are we shooting people? but the viewer might think he was talking to the director, inquiring whether the camera was rolling. Then a bullet, shockingly, blows the Iraqi away, and we have our first clue that this caper comedy, about a quartet of renegade Yanks stealing gold bullion from Saddam, isn't going to be merely a jolly macho update of "Kelly's Heroes." David O. Russell's remarkable movie can be blisteringly funny, but it's playing for keeps.

Russell, who's made two nervy independent movies, "Spanking the Monkey" and the neo-screwball "Flirting with Disaster," is making his first big-canvas, big-studio movie, but there's no sense of compromise. Blackly funny, unafraid to shift emotional gears from farce to horror, peppered with spectacular action, and bitingly critical of the way the U.S. abandoned the anti-Saddam resistance movement when the war was over, "Three Kings" works both as a rousing action adventure movie and as a subversion of the genre. In movie terms, the Gulf War is terra nova, and the director, revealing a visual imagination he hadn't shown before, conjures strikingly original visions — burning oil fields, exploding cows, bunkers filled with VCRs and mobile phones and stolen computers, soldiers washed away in a sea of milk. These are the tales the public, busy tying its yellow ribbons and watching news reports that were rigorously controlled by the Pentagon, rarely got to hear. That they should arrive in the form of a Hollywood adventure comedy is surprising. That this dark comedy manages to be both disturbingly powerful and powerfully funny is the most welcome surprise of all.
DAVID ANSEN
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'Three Seasons' (5/3/99)
Directed by Tony Bui
Starring Don Duong, Ngoc Hiep Nguyen

The first American movie to be shot in Vietnam since the war, "Three Seasons" arrives garlanded with prizes from the Sundance Film Festival. The writer-director, 26-year-old Tony Bui, walked off with both the jury's Grand Prize and the Audience Award for his subtitled film. In addition, Lisa Rinzler was honored for her cinematography. This last accolade is the easiest to understand: whether she's filming in the humid, bustling streets of Saigon or among lotus-strewn country landscapes, Rinzler's burnished images give off a lovely glow. The heat, the beauty and the poverty of contemporary Vietnam are made tangible. Bui, who was raised in California (he left Vietnam when he was 2), interweaves three tales intended to reflect a society in painful transition, torn between Eastern and Western traditions. There's a thin line between the archetypal and the stereotypical. The film's fans clearly think the movie falls into the former category. To my eyes, the novelty and exoticism of the setting couldn't disguise the hackneyed situations and sentimentalized characters. Bui's talent is evident. He has a keen visual sense and a knack for storytelling. But he's brought nothing but received ideas to Vietnam. While questioning the dubious "progress" represented by plastic lotus flowers, luxury hotels and Coca-Cola, Bui lays on his own set of oppressive Western cliches. If the movie were in English, would anyone buy this romantic, leprosy-ridden tragic poet, and one more beautiful whore with a heart of gold?
DAVID ANSEN
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'Three to Tango' (10/26/99)
Directed by Damon Santostefano
Starring Neve Campbell, Matthew Perry

Oscar Novak (Matthew Perry) and Peter Steinberg (Oliver Platt) are partners in a small architectural firm and desperately want to win a $90 million dollar job from billionare entrepeneur Charles Newman (Dylan McDermott). The catch? The insanely jealous (and married) Newman, thinks Novak is gay and therefore the perfect candidate to spy on his artist mistress, Amy Post (Neve Campbell). As Novak, Perry plays a bumbling goofball who's low on courage and manages to keep up the act convincingly enough to be elected Chicago's gay man of the year. He also (no surprise) falls in love with Campbell. There's no denying "Three to Tango" is a superficial movie — some may take offense at the bawdy humor and trivial manner in which it deals with gays. But what can you expect? It's a Hollywood movie. It's not designed for deep analysis, just some good laughs, and there are plenty of those. So relax and enjoy the brain candy.
KEVIN STUART
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'Tieta do Agreste' (8/25/97)
Directed by Carlos Diegues
Starring Sonia Braga, Mar�lia P�ra

"Tieta do Agreste," based on a novel by Brazilian author Jorge Amado, is the story of a young woman (Tieta) from a small northeastern Brazilian town (Agreste) exiled by her father for losing her virginity. Twenty-six years later, she arrives in a red sportscar — not the bus — upon her return from the big city, Sao Paulo. Things in Agreste have changed little. She is the one who has changed, and her mere presence brings both new hope and forgotten discord to the town. A brilliant study of 'everyday' Brazilian life, "Tieta do Agreste" is just that: a fantastic mix of sex, money, and politics. "Tieta do Agreste" opened the Latin American Cinema Now festival at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater in New York City.(on video)
SARAH WADE HUTMAN
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'A Time for Drunken Horses' (10/26/00)
Directed by Bahman Ghobadi
The universal language, as cinema has been called, has finally reached the Kurds. This beleaguered ethnic group, dismissed as a �minority� despite its 20 million people spread throughout Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, has never had a film made exclusively about them. Bahman Ghobadi, a Kurdish director, corrects that in his spare and hauntingly sad first feature film, �A Time for Drunken Horses,� the co-winner of the Camera d�Or at this year�s Cannes Film Festival.

In the West, we would probably call this story of a young boy, Ayoub (Ayoub Ahmadi), and his awesome responsibility for his four brothers and sisters a �coming of age� tale. But for Ayoub and hundreds of youths like him whose parents are dead or working abroad, there is no time to come of age. The young people in this film�none of whom are actors�sing �life is aging me� as they travel in the back of a truck to a nearby town, where they work hard labor all day for a few cents� pay.Ayoub�s worries are magnified by his long-suffering brother Madi (Mehdi Ekhtiar-Dini), deformed from birth, who faces death within a few weeks unless he receives an operation in Iraq. Even with the surgery, his life expectancy is only another seven or eight months. With this urgency propelling the story, �A Time for Drunken Horses� moves restlessly toward its uncertain conclusion as Ayoub, with Madi on his back and a mule in tow, traipses through thick snow toward the barbed wire fence that separates them from their fate in Iraq.

The film takes its title from the peasants� practice of spiking their mules� drinking water with cheap liquor to get them to move up steep hills during extreme cold. Often the animals collapse under the weight of tires and heavy bundles. They are not alone. With their own backs cracking under sacks full of supplies or smuggled goods, the working boys are not easily distinguishable from the beasts. What is extraordinary, however, is that director Ghobadi allows us to feel the deep family bonds that provide a protective layer of support and even happiness to these young people. They live in stone houses without electricity (much less televisions or phones or computers), but their smiles are as moving as their tears.

The youngsters are all from the same village in Iran where the film was shot. Each of them, especially Ahmadi, is wonderfully adept at translating all too familiar emotions from their daily life to the screen. �A Time for Drunken Horses� is not entertainment. It is, rather, an artful portrait of a people mostly unknown to the outside world. As such it is also a plea for understanding.
MICAHEL RUSH
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'A Time to Kill' (7/29/96)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock

A 10-year-old black Mississippi girl gets raped by two white-trash scumbags. Her father Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) guns the rapists down with an automatic rifle in the courthouse. Then he implores a young, broke, idealistic white lawyer, Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey), to do the impossible: save him from the gas chamber. Brigance stands his ground, staring down racism with a ragtag team that includes a law student eager to get into his legal briefs (Sandra Bullock). "Kill" is a disappointing movie: slow, overpopulated and muddled in its thinking. But McConaughey and Jackson act their butts off. "A Time to Kill" wants to be a victory march, but it's a compromised crusade. (on video)
JEFF GILES
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'Time Code' (5/04/00)
Directed by Mike Figgis
Starring Stellan Skarsgard, Saffron Burrows

It's so rare to find a truly experimental film these days that the few out there must be forgiven their faults. If the new digital venture by Mike Figgis falls a little short on plot and characterization, it more than makes up for it with its breathtaking visual audacity. Shot on four hand-held digital cameras as one 93-minute, expertly choreographed take, "Time Code" is a film full of optical challenges. By using a quadruple-split screen, Figgis shows the four interwoven stories unfolding simultaneously, leaving the editing process entirely up to the viewer (though to be strictly accurate, he helps by raising and lowering the sound in the different areas of the screen to suggest where the more significant action is occurring.) The experience is oddly satisfying; Hollywood is so rife with films that tell you exactly where to look and how to feel at any given moment that it is it is a rare pleasure to be given freedom of visual choice.

Still, the film's story itself is not terribly profound. A dark Hollywood comedy that is kind of a poor second cousin to "The Player," "Time Code" follows the paths of a group of L.A. types (Salma Hayek as an aspiring actress, Jeanne Tripplehorn as her jealous lover, Stellan Skarsgard as an adulterous, alcoholic studio exec, and Saffron Burrows as his mournful wife) who, all end up at the offices of Red Mullet Productions (the name of Figgis's own production company). There are some moments of hilarious self-parody--an absurdly pretentious pitch meeting in which an up-and-coming director proposes a digital project not unlike Figgis's own. There are also moments of true emotional resonance--Saffron Burrows being quietly comforted by a young woman she has just met (this is, after all, the director of "Leaving Las Vegas" and "The Loss of Sexual Innocence"). These highpoints do a lot to make up for the moments of tedium, such as Jeanne Tripplehorn moping about endlessly in her limousine. But the film's true delight lies in the fun of picking out odd occurrences and throwaway lines in the different quadrants of the screen and those miraculous points at which the events and characters converge and cross over with pitch-perfect timing. You may leave the theater with a bit of a headache, but you'll feel amply compensated by the sense of having seen a master inventor at work. ANDREA C. BASORA
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It's an ordinary documentary about an extraordinary man, but "Timothy Leary's Dead" does have one one shattering scene that will have you reeling in horror long after you leave the theater. That scene does not, however, make up for the blandness that precedes it as director Paul Davids guides us through Leary's life in its evolving stages — wayward academic, drug-happy hippie, imprisoned novelist and Internet fiend — presented through various interviews and predictable vintage footage. We learn some juicy details about Leary's outsider existence in the late '60s and '70s, but there's very little else of interest in this padded documentary. Ultimately, the greatest fault of the movie, perhaps because Leary himself helped make it, is that doesn't present a well-rounded portrait of the man. It documents an intelligent radical who knew a lot of celebrities. But the pop icon whom President Richard Nixon once called "the most dangerous man alive" comes off as awfully harmless. (on video) B.J. SIGESMUND
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'Tin Cup' (8/19/96)
Directed by Ron Shelton
Starring Kevin Costner, Don Johnson

Ron Shelton may be the only guy in Hollywood who makes sports movies in which winning isn't everything. Here the maker of "Bull Durham" creates a romantic comedy around the game of golf. You can trust him to tweak the cliches. By "going for it" time after stupid time, Roy (Tin Cup) McAvoy (Kevin Costner) has ended up as a golfing instructor at a west Texas driving range, rather than a pro like his old rival (Don Johnson). Roy meets Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo), a psychotherapist who comes to him for a lesson, and suddenly he has a reason to go for it big time. Shelton turns the convention of happy sports-movie endings on its head and still manages to make you happy. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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'Titanic' (12/15/97)
Directed by James Cameron
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet

"Titanic" is no mere disaster movie — it is James Cameron's bid to be the new David Lean. The film is an epic love story about a 17-year-old American aristocrat (Kate Winslet) who is betrothed to a rich and hateful suitor (Billy Zane) but falls in love with an impoverished, free-spirited artist (Leonardo DiCaprio), who won his third-class passage in a card game. It's "Romeo and Juliet" on a sinking ship. However, the true allure of "Titanic" is its invitation to swoon at a scale of epic moviemaking that is all but obsolete. When Cameron's camera pulls back from a close-up of the exuberant DiCaprio at the prow of the ship and lifts to peer down from the sky at the Titanic passing majestically underneath, you feel the kind of jaw-dropping delight you felt as a child overwhelmed by the sheer size of Hollywood's dreams. "Titanic" is big, bold, touchingly uncynical filmmaking. (on video) DAVID ANSEN & CORIE BROWN
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'To Die For' (10/2/95)
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon

If you're looking for a warm and fuzzy movie, this is not for you. The milk of human kindness does not flow from this very funny collaboration between director Gus Van Sant and writer Buck Henry. That's one of the things that makes it refreshing. Satire has never been Hollywood's genre of choice, and it seems more endangered than ever. The target of this barbed wit is the American addiction to media celebrity. "What's the point of doing anything worthwhile if it's not on TV?" ponders Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman), the movie's fiercely ambitious anti-heroine. A smart and wicked delight. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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'Topsy Turvy' (01/21/00)
Directed by Mike Leigh
Starring Jim Broadbent, Alan Corduner

"Topsy-Turvy," a period film so lived-in it makes most historical movies look like costume parties, begins in the humid London summer of 1884, when Gilbert and Sullivan have reached a creative impasse. The composer, Arthur Sullivan (Alan Corduner), is a hedonist and bon vivant who aspires to write more serious music. The grouchy, proper W. S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent), married to the long-suffering, childless Lucy (Lesley Manville), writes the clever librettos. Mike Leigh's wonderful, bittersweet film isn't actually about their collaboration�they work separately, and have surprisingly few scenes together. It's Leigh's loving but tough-minded salute to the creative process itself. The G&S; stalemate is broken when Gilbert, inspired by a Japanese exhibition in London, conceives of the idea for "The Mikado." In delightful, knowing detail, "Topsy-Turvy" takes us from first rehearsal to opening night. There may be a bit too much "Mikado" for everyone's taste, protracting the already long running time, but "Topsy-Turvy" is filled with delicious backstage drama, and superb actors reveling in the opportunity to play their 19th-century counterparts. Among the standouts are Timothy Spall as the leading man sent into a tizzy when Gilbert cuts his best song; Martin Savage as the tremulous, morphine-addicted actor George Grossmith; and Shirley Henderson as the hard-drinking Leonora.
DAVID ANSEN
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An eye-opener, and not just because it's the first entirely computer-animated feature film. Before I saw this 77-minute expose I had no idea just how tough the life of a toy really was. Small wonder then that Woody, the pull-string cowboy (with the voice of Tom Hanks), is nervous about his owner Andy's 7th birthday. What if Andy's presents doom his old playthings to premature obsolescence? Sure enough, Woody's worst nightmare comes to pass. Enter plastic space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), a square-jawed superhero with laser beams and pop-out wings. Once again Disney has come up with a winning animated feature that has something for everyone on the age spectrum. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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'Toy Story 2' (11/23/99)
Directed by John Lasseter
Starring (voices) Tom Hanks, Tim Allen

A torn and frayed Woody (voice by Tom Hanks) is once again at the endangered center of the story. While his beloved lord and master, Andy, is off at camp, Woody is kidnapped by the odious, obese and obsessive toy collector Al (Wayne Knight), owner of Al's Toy Barn. Woody had no idea how valuable he was! Turns out he was the star of a '50s TV show called "Woody's Roundup" (re-created here in all its black-and-white kinescope glory), which was rendered obsolete by Sputnik. While Woody's frantic pals are desperately trying to save him from the clutches of the greedy Al, Woody himself faces a toy's ultimate moral conundrum. Is it a finer thing to preserve himself forever in a museum or fulfill his role as a child's playmate, at the risk of life-ending injury? Who knew how complicated it could be to be a toy? As in the original, the superrealist images beguile us with their bold wit, and the storytelling is so tight, urgent and inventive there doesn't seem to be a wasted moment. Which makes you wonder—why can't scripts this clever be written for human beings?
DAVID ANSEN
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'Trainspotting' (7/15/96)
Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner

This film crackles with dead-end grit. It's brutally black-comic landscape offers the boredom of life in Mark Renton's depressed Edinburgh suburb. And there is its partner in negation, drawn in ecstatic detail: heroin. Renton's course is manifest. He kicks the drug. Then goes back on it. Over the beat of Iggy Pop's punk anthem, "Lust for Life," he draws his agenda with bracing clarity. He is a Hamlet of the shooting gallery: handsome, philosophical and keen to life's incongruity. Artfully ambivalent, Danny Boyle's ("Shallow Grave") film, twists with a junkie's logic. It does not preach; it wallows in the pain and, more daringly, in the pleasure. (on video)
JOHN LELAND
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'Treasure Island' (3/24/00)
Directed by Scott King
Starring Lance Baker, Nick Offerman

This movie has nothing to do with Robert Louis Stevenson's novel about nasty pirates and buried loot. The Special Jury prizewinner from last year's Sundance, "Treasure Island" takes place on rocky body of land in San Francisco Bay that used to be a military installation and where, according to the film, secret codes were written and broken during World War II. Shot as a parody of, or a commentary on (it's hard to tell which) '40s noir films, "Treasure Island" begins with wacky prologue-ish shorts, one a femme fatale caper, the other a newsreel about the war, replete with commentary on the "cunning Japs." Then the credits for the feature presentation start and they're hilariously offbeat: the director credit is tiny, while the script girl credit (a guy) takes up the whole screen. By the time the actual film appears, most viewers will be expecting a comedy. Whoops! If "Treasure Island" had been directed by David Lynch, it would have been darkly funny, disturbing and creepy. But as written, directed and shot by Scott King, it is simply enigmatic, uninspired and oddly stale. It also seems seems about 50 percent longer than its brief 86-minute running time. Two Treasure Island employees, Frank (Lance Baker) and Samuel (Nick Offerman), are working on a complex espionage project: they are planning to drop a dead body (Jonah Blechman) carrying fake invasion plans across enemy lines in order to fool the Japanese. Not only is their plan freakish, the guys themselves are freaks: Nebbishy and nervous Frank is married to two women, a nurse with body-covering psoriasis and a Japanese-American woman in hiding; he's also wooing a third, who speaks like a vampish Ophelia. Samuel is more of a regular Joe, burly and tough, but he and his wife, Penny (the flippant Daisy Hall), have threesomes with other men every week; Samuel's homosexuality is his constant conflict. To make matters worse, the dead soldier Frank and Samuel are using for their counter-intelligence starts haunting them. Hilarity does not ensue. The film is decidedly art house fare, full of incomprehensible edits and plot twists. It works only as a curio, not as entertainment.
TED GIDEONSE
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'Trick' (7/23/99)
Directed by Jim Fall
Starring Christian Campbell, John Paul Pitoc

Being a young, under-employed song-writer in New York tends to mean a few things: you're neurotic, your apartment isn't big enough, and you have friends who are actors. All of these things can be problematic when you meet a guy on the subway and want to have sex with him very quickly. Thus the plot of the sweet, though somewhat roughly made "Trick." Naive, young Gabriel (Christian Campbell) leaves his musical theater workshop class and has a Diet Coke at a local gay bar, where he eyes hot, young Mark (John Paul Pitoc), a go-go boy. Later, they pick each other up on the train. Gabriel brings Mark back to his one-room hovel and hopes they can do the deed before Gabriel's roommate, Rich (Brad Beyer), comes home with his girlfriend. Unfortunately, Rich and Judy (the hilariously dippy Lorri Bagley) arrive early. The rest of the film follows Gabriel and Mark as they try to search for a place to be alone-- along the way encountering a singing queen (the irritating Steve Hayes), a drag queen (the brilliant Clinton Leupp), and a princess (the amusing, but frighteningly over-the-top, Tori Spelling). First-time filmmaker Jim Fall elicits sincere performances from his actors, but the comedic timing occasionally falls off, making some scenes unnecessarily awkward. And the subplot about Gabriel's search for the missing lyrics to his song about love falls flat--the connection between finding a rhyme and finding yourself is too high concept for a film that is basically a funny, gay retelling of "Before Sunrise."
TED GIDEONSE
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Trippin' (5/14/99)
Directed by David Raynr
Starring Deon Richmond, Maia Campbell

There's much to be said for a teen movie that hides a message beneath the facade of a crass comedy. "Trippin'" is trying to sell young people the idea that obsessing over the impossible lives of rappers and NBA players is the path to poverty and everlasting virginity. Greg (Deon Richmond, Bud from the original "The Cosby Show") is a high school senior more concerned with his senior prom than his post-high school plans. He's too busy day-dreaming — or trippin' — to fill out his college applications. His extraordinarily lifelike daydreams, shown to the audience in "Herman's Head" fashion, are full of busty babes seeking steamy sex. Want to fill in the bubbles? After receiving lectures from his caring and stereotyped parents and his charismatic philosophy teacher, it's finally Cinny (Brandy stand-in Maia Campbell), the smartest and hottest girl in school, who gets him to apply to college — because that's the only way he can get her to talk to him. By the end of the boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back formula, each of Greg and Cinny's friends are given futures that include wonderful academic and business achievements. Except Greg. Though we know he's been admitted to college, his fortune seems to hold only Cinny and an orgasm. The medicine is so sugar-coated that it doesn't even have a placebo effect.
TED GIDEONSE
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'The Truman Show' (6/1/98)
Directed by Peter Weir
Starring Jim Carrey, Laura Linney

"The Truman Show" has been broadcast live for more than 10,000 days before the star figures out he's on TV. His name is Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) and, until recently, he was under the impression that he was just an insurance salesman. Now he's discovered that his family and friends are actors, that the eerily perfect island on which he lives is a giant set and that even the most tender and terrible moments of his life were scripted as part of a 24-hour-a-day hit soap opera. Needless to say, he's pissed. Peter Weir's "The Truman Show" is a miraculous movie. It will rattle both your head and heart, and Carrey's raw, life-size performance will surprise you if you still think of him as the poet laureate of potty humor. (on video)
JEFF GILES with YAHLIN CHANG and RAY SAWHILL
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The classic romantic dilemma of Cyrano De Bergerac — do we fall in love with a body or a soul? — reversed and updated in a slight but beguiling romantic comedy. Abby Barnes (Janeane Garofalo) is a smart, wry radio call-in show host and vet who dispenses advice to L.A. pet owners. The film's Roxanne is an English photographer named Brian (Ben Chaplin), who's tantalized by Abby's voice and asks her for a date. The flustered deejay describes herself as a tall blonde — a description that happens to fit her traffic-stopping neighbor and new friend Noelle (Uma Thurman). Director Michael Lehmann ("Heathers") nimbly keeps this airy concoction afloat. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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'20 Dates' (3/2/99)
Directed by Myles Berkowitz
Starring Myles Berkowitz, Elisabeth Wagner

Myles Berkowitz is adamant in insisting that "20 Dates" is not a documentary. While the movie's intention is indisputably documentary-like—to portray the search for love by capturing 20 real-life dates on film—the final outcome resembles nothing so much as a screwball comedy. At a standstill in both his love life and his career, Berkowitz hits on a brilliant idea: why not come up with a project that could jumpstart both? So he finds some minimal financing—from the rather sinister producer Elie Samaha, who keeps on pushing for more nudity—and sets up a camera crew to film his excursions into the terrifying world of modern-day dating. Berkowitz goes out of his way to portray himself as something of a loser, and is as unexploitative of the women he is filming as possible; nonetheless, there are some uneasy, voyeuristic moments in an otherwise lighthearted and funny film. The dilemma in Berkowitz's story is that he does meet his true love—they recently got engaged—but only halfway through the project: Should he continue and risk losing her, or should he stop dating and give up on his movie. Unfortunately, by this time the whole thing is getting a little tired and the viewer is unable to summon up much concern about the outcome. "20 Dates" provides some great laughs, but founders when it tries to tackle more serious issues. Entitled "10 Dates," it might have been a much better film.
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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'28 Days' (4/14/00)
Directed by Betty Thomas
Starring Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen

If you thought Sandra Bullock was a wild thing in "Forces of Nature," check her out as the disheveled, alcoholic party girl Gwen in "28 Days." At her sister Lily's wedding she licks the hors d'oeuvres right off the tray, tumbles into the wedding cake, insults the bride and groom, hijacks their limo and crashes it into a house. Would you say this girl has a problem? This is the movie's overstated opening, and its uncertain tone�pitched sloppily between farce and nightmare� doesn't bode well for what is to come. Director Betty Thomas and writer Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich") want to rehabilitate the overly familiar rehab drama ("Clean and Sober," "When a Man Loves a Woman") by injecting it with a streak of gallows humor. It's a good idea in theory, but it requires more than synthetic sitcom humor. The laughs in "28 Days" are designed to distract us from the subject, not illuminate it. This is a movie afraid of its own shadows.
DAVID ANSEN
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If you had it all to do again, would you do it differently? More importantly, would it make a difference? That is the question posed by the charming, if not wildly original, British/Spanish collaboration, "Twice Upon a Yesterday." Douglas Henshall (most memorable as the incestuous, artistocratic brother in "Angels and Insects") is Victor Bukowski, a scruffily appealing stuggling actor who makes the mistake of confessing of an affair to his live-in girlfriend, Sylvia (Lena Headey). Needless to say, she dumps him and takes up with another man, leaving Victor crying in his many drinks. In the midst of a drunken stupor he is rescued by an incongrous pair of Spanish garbagemen and wakes to find himself transported back to the key moment in the past where everything went wrong. Yes, it sounds like a "Sliding Doors" scenario, except that Gwyneth Paltrow's destiny was a matter of fate and one tiny moment — catching or not catching the train — decided the entire course of her life. Here, Victor is fully aware that he is reliving the experience and consciously makes different choices, yet it seems that he still cannot control the outcome. He chooses not to have an affair this time around, only to discover that his girlfriend is having one instead: the relationship remains doomed. It is a tantalizing notion that director Maria Ripoll executes delicately, despite some rather silly forays into magic realism. This small tale of second chances is worth giving a chance.
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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'Twilight' (3/16/98)
Directed by Robert Benton
Starring Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon

In Robert Benton's "Twilight," Paul Newman is world-weary shamus Harry Ross. Two years ago, he took a bullet in the upper thigh while extracting the underage daughter of faded movie star Jack Ames (Gene Hackman) from a Mexican tryst. He's still Jack's gofer, living on Jack's charity in Jack's house, in agonizing proximity to Jack's ripely beautiful wife, Catherine (Susan Sarandon), an actress a bit past her prime. One day Jack has Harry deliver a mysterious envelope of money and he gets shot at, kicked in the ribs and trundled into a police station as a murder suspect. "Twilight" is all formula. But the formula works here because Benton doesn't pretend his movie is anything but an elegant homage. With James Garner as a studio fixer, you've got a male triumvirate who make up in grizzled stealth what they lack in quick reflexes. (on video)
PETER PLAGENS
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'Twin Town' (6/2/97)
Directed by Kevin Allen
Starring Llyr Ifans, Rhys Ifans

In "Twin Town," Kevin Allen turns the Welsh city of Swansea into a center of mayhem where the happenings are somehow horrific and humorous at the same time. This tightly plotted tale of escalating violence begins when the well-liked Fatty Lewis, a local handyman and the father of the twins, falls off a ladder while roofing, and his hard-hearted employer refuses to pay his hospital bills. The relatively innocent — but hilariously crude — retribution engineered by the twins initiates a cycle of vengeance that soon spirals out of control. Jeremy and Julian, the twins, are played by Rhys Ifans and Llyr Evans — real-life brothers, and it shows. Their intense affinity and moments of tacit communication make what could have been cartoon characters into something real. Unfettered and iconoclastic, "Twin Town" provides a bleakly original — and frantically comic — view of contemporary chaos and the absurdity of revenge. (on video)
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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'Two Girls And A Guy' (4/27/98)
Directed by James Toback
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham

Two strangers, Carla (Heather Graham) and Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner), are standing on the stoop of Blake Allen's (Robert Downey Jr.) New York loft when they discover they are both waiting for the same boyfriend. They break into his loft to await his return and give their stunned lover one hell of a surprise party. James Toback's scorching, thoroughly unformulaic comedy takes place almost entirely in real time, in one location, among these three people. It is more than enough. "Two Girls and a Guy" works the edgy, abrasive, dangerously erotic territory that is "bad boy" writer-director Toback's specialty. In this hothouse chamber piece, Toback wants us to chew on the messy romantic and sexual dilemmas that plague modern relationships. Monogamy vs. promiscuity. Honesty vs. deception. How to reconcile one's dueling appetites for sexual experimentation and commitment, adventure and permanence? His smart, raunchy movie offers no answers (how could it?), but it poses its questions with painfully hilarious honesty. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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