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Film Clips
JANUARY 4, 1999:
AMERICAN HISTORY X. Films that tell me what to think are
boring and insulting, and that's generally what I expect from
movies that address race issues. That's not the case with American
History X, and that alone makes it satisfying. It tells the
story of Nazi skinhead Derek (a buff Edward Norton) and his turnaround
while imprisoned for brutally murdering two black men. Largely
told via beautifully shot black-and-white flashbacks, it focuses
on the impact of Derek's hatred on his younger brother Daniel
(the under-cast Edward Furlong). This gives the film resonance
as it comments on how impressionable and willing to seek out simple
answers we are when we're young, and we watch Daniel spout propaganda
that's been fed to him by his brother and White Power guru Cameron
(Stacy Keach). The film is also troubling, because much of the
story revolves around hatemonger Derek and his clear articulations
of his position; in this sense the revelatory ending has less
of an impact. Also, Derek's turning point is the result of being
raped by another skinhead, so his hatred for non-whites is simply
transferred to the group he once supported rather than growing
out of realizations about any wrongdoing on his part. The film
is certainly thought-provoking in that it brings up more questions
than it answers; and avoids the disingenuousness of having the
final word on race relations summed up in two hours. --Higgins
ENEMY OF THE STATE. This tribute to Francis Ford Coppola's
early masterpiece The Conversation takes the star of that
film, Gene Hackman, and hands him a heavy-handed action script,
Will Smith's bubbly Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes as a co-star, and lots
of explosions in order to deaden any of the impact that Coppola's
film had. Enemy of the State tries to raise questions about
the surveillance society through a story wherein a young lawyer
(Smith) is observed and undermined by the NSA, which utilizes
every security camera and spy satellite in the world just to track
one guy who's running around D.C. in his pajamas. For good measure,
it throws in offensive stereotypes of Asians, Italians and Mexicans,
as well as some unconvincing speeches, a cute little boy and a
series of deus-ex-machina rescues. No doubt Coppola's aesthetic
sensibilities are spinning in their grave. --DiGiovanna
GODS AND MONSTERS. Ian McKellen (check out his web site
at www.mckellen.com, I swear to god) turns in another excellent
performance in this sad and partly true story of early Hollywood
director James Whale. Whale was the force behind Frankenstein
and Bride of Frankenstein (the latter being one of the
best films of its era), who was used up and cast out by the Hollywood
system. Recounting his memories of WWI, his monster movies, his
life as a gay swinger in old Hollywood, and the debilitating illness
that is causing his mind to flood with memories, Whale enchants
and repulses his beautiful gardener, played by the heavily muscled
Brendan Fraser. Whale's homosexuality strains their relations
and provides a center point for director/writer Bill Condon's
well-made story of a man who tries to create a monster that will
destroy him.
--DiGiovanna
HENRY FOOL. Director Hal Hartley has again triumphed, making
a sad, comic, and extremely thoughtful film. It is this last feature
that really sets Henry Fool apart from virtually everything
that has come out of Hollywood in the last 10 years. Hartley respects
his audience's intelligence, providing dialogue that's actually
philosophical, rather than platitudinous, music that leaves space
for the listener's own emotional response, and a sly acting style
that puts the message into relief with subtle humor. This story
of a garbage man turned international celebrity poet is surreal
while still maintaining a strong connection to ordinary life,
and is no doubt one of the best films of the year.
--DiGiovanna
JACK FROST. Sitting through this family flick is kinda
like flossing with piano wire. The bloody mess begins when Jack
Frost (Michael Keaton), who's a perfect dad in every way except
for the fact that he sometimes says "no" to his son
in order to pursue his career as a blues singer, dies. Oddly enough,
he dies after he decides that family should always come
first--almost like he's being punished for believing the movie's
message. A year later, Frost becomes a snowman due to a magical
harmonica, which could have solved all the family's woes years
ago if they'd known it was magical. Oh well. Now he's a snowman
with a creepy rubberized computer-animated face, and "better
a snow dad than no dad." With his twiggy arms, he finally
teaches his son the game-winning hockey moves, and they bond.
For unexplained reasons, this Snuffleupasnowman avoids everybody
else from his life, including his hot mama of a wife played by
Kelly Preston; perhaps he's worried she'll ask him to "Sing
me a smile" again. It's nice that filmmakers can smoothly
animate snowmen and whatnot, but when will they program computers
to smooth out logic problems in the plot, like the fact that horny
men aren't beating down Kelly Preston's door a year after her
husband snuffs it? Or that Jack Frost lets his son risk his life
trekking to the Colorado Rockies to keep dad from melting, when
Frosty knows darned well he can't stick around anyway? Kids who
have lost a parent may get something therapeutic from this poorly
thought-out McMovie, but I'd recommend actual therapy.
--Woodruff
LIVING OUT LOUD. This journey-of-self-realization flick
has the same problem a lot of movies have these days: It's entertaining
but annoying. The ever-charming Holly Hunter plays Judith Nelson,
a wealthy doctor's wife who loses it when she discovers her husband
is in love with a younger woman. She slowly pulls herself back
together with the help of some quirky new friends, a saucy nightclub
singer (Queen Latifah) and the building's elevator operator (Danny
DeVito). The ad campaign for this movie points out that director
Richard LaGravenese also wrote The Fisher King and the
screenplay for The Bridges of Madison County, as though
this were a good thing. Living Out Loud suffers from the
same gut-kick episodes of sentimentality and overwrought meaning-of-life
moments as in LaGravenese's earlier movies, cheap shots all of
them. Does anyone really need a movie to show them how to connect
more deeply with their fellow humans? Even so, this could have
been a decent film if LaGravenese had cut out the kids-dying-of-cancer,
crack-baby-rescue subplots. The performances are quite good and
the story zips along; yet, at the end of it all, it feels awfully
fake for a movie about "authenticity."--Richter
PRINCE OF EGYPT. The book was better. (But the previews
were killer: The new Star Wars prequel; plus next summer's
bizarre animated adventure Tarzan, which, to judge by the
racy preview, may be the first Disney movie with a sex scene!)
--Wadsworth
PSYCHO. Director Gus Van Sant has made a shot-by-shot edition
of Hitchcock's 1960s masterpiece, a sort of 101 Strings version
of your favorite hit. The result is a film that's interesting
only in its pointlessness. Why mess with something as trashy and
fine as Psycho, Gus? What's the big idea? The new Psycho
features some updated props, like a Walkman; and an updated cast,
like psychohunk Vince Vaughn, who plays Norman Bates as a big,
knife-wielding sexpot. Hitchcock, that famous, repressed romantic,
would blush in his grave if he could see his own Norman Bates
waxing the bishop while spying on a girl through his peephole.
It's wrong, oh so wrong! The title sequence, updated with some
puke-green accents, is still stunning, as is Bernard Herrmann's
sublime score. The rest is for the birds. --Richter
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Measure for measure, this is not playwright
Tom Stoppard's best work. Still, it's a reasonably decent comedy
of Eros, wherein young Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) spends
his midsummer's nights dreaming about the beautiful Viola (Gwyneth
Paltrow), trying to write Romeo and Juliet, and avoiding
the vengeful Lord Wessex, who wants to kill Will for messing with
his woman. All this stirs up a tempest in the court of Queen Elizabeth,
played by perennial noble Judi Dench (Mrs. Brown). Say
what you will about the witty use of Shakespeare's titles and
plots in this script (slightly altered scenes from Romeo and
Juliet and Twelfth Night form the basis for this story
about a girl named Viola who dresses as a boy to get a part in
Shakespeare's play), it's all much ado about nothing as there
are too many long pauses between funny bits. Still, if you'd enjoy
seeing lots of Paltrow and Fiennes, both of whom are attractive
and talented young actors, then this film is as you like it. --DiGiovanna
YOU'VE GOT MAIL. Okay, let's clear this up: "You've
got mail" is not grammatically correct. It is, in fact, redundant:
it should be "You have mail," or even just "You've
mail," if you want to give it a 19th-century feel. It's just
the absence of 19th-century sensibilities that bugged me about
this cute and intermittently funny romantic comedy. It tells the
story of a petit bourgeois bookstore owner (Meg Ryan, who's
maintained her pixie-like looks for far longer than should be
naturally possible) who is driven out of business by a grand
bourgeois owner of a chain of bookstores (Tom Hanks, who is
either wearing a toupee or has an atrocious dye job, or both).
Think they'll fall in love? While there's lots of sentimental
whining about the loss of small businesses, I wondered why anyone
should care when the exploited workers were as far removed from
the means of production under one boss as the other. It's the
hallmark of late 20th-century capitalism that production facilities
have been moved away from the politically sensitized "first
world" and into the emerging economies, where 19th-century
conditions are not yet considered appalling and inhuman, and where
child labor and cramped, dirty factories are far from the eyes
of concerned do-gooders. Which isn't to say that a lot of people
won't like You've Got Mail; if they liked Nora Ephron's
other films (When Harry Met Sally and They Made Unchallenging
Witty Comments for 90 Minutes Before Falling in Love, and
Sleepless in a Very Cleaned-Up, Middle of the Road Version
of Seattle). If so, then they'll have to like this one, as
it's a virtual carbon copy of those earlier efforts...but why
not read Volume I of Karl Marx's Kapital instead? It's
informative and stars Meg Ryan as the bookish but sexy...oh, never
mind.
--DiGiovanna
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