On Screen
SHARGEL, RAPHAEL
On Screm Where Hope Still Looms By Raphael Shargel CONVENTIONAL WISDOM has it that in hard times the cinema accommodates audiences yearning for mindless escapism. In fact, the reverse...
...Indeed, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion raises the prospect of Allen again committing himself to writing scripts that don't sound like first drafts and turning out lively entertainments...
...This summer actually gave us a musical in this vein...
...Pearl Harbor opened Memorial Day weekend, and during its excruciating three hours it failed to generate a single credibly human emotion or dramatic situation...
...Think how the productions of the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, and the Watergate years reflected the tribulations of their eras...
...It is currently dominated by amateurs angling to be admitted into the mainstream...
...But they are sufficient to keep Madden a director worth following...
...Given that computerized effects are the principal attraction of the event film, they are certain to proliferate, even though the ambition of technicians outweighs their ability...
...As with Captain Corelli, the chief problem in this cute caper is the stars themselves...
...It's hate at first sight...
...When Tim Burton's dismal remake of Planet of the Apes saw revenues decrease by 60 per cent in its second weekend, the studio cried all the way to the bank...
...This exercise in horror was written and directed by 29-year-old Alejandro Amenâbar, whose four previous Spanish language movies have already established him as a considerable force...
...Madden, whose last film was the Academy Award-winning Shakespeare in Love, may be trying to hedge his bets...
...Because cable television, despite having co-opted most other R-rated genres, has yet to generate a successful "gross-out" comedy series, movies such as Osmosis Jones and American Pie 2 are the only arenas where the sniggering adolescent can exult in a parent vomiting on a teacher or a fraternity boy urinating on a stranger's head...
...their scenes together play like combat between schools of acting...
...The phenomenon of the "event film" is tailored for the three-minute trailer...
...Not to be outdone, the teenage slacker comedy continued to replicate a brand of humorfhat made the vulgar Theres Something About Mary one of last century's biggest hits...
...The new domestics, led by Bertha Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), seem oddly unperturbed by the goings-on...
...Amenâbar, who wrote his own score, does not totally forgo the hackneyed rumble of bass keys on the piano and the high-pitched dissonance of violins, but he lets several very effective scenes generate soundless tension...
...Kidman is extraordinary...
...She's an intelligent feminist who wants the firm's detectives to use modern scientific methods...
...She appears less in love than indulging a masochistic fantasy...
...Plot continuity and character development are simply not part of the package...
...Yet hope still looms, even in this sticky season...
...Alas, that was as original as this summer got...
...Our long period of sedation, though, may produce permanent amnesia...
...WHILE The Others managed to find an appreciative audience, John Madden's bigger budgeted Captain Corelli's Mandolin has done disappointing business...
...Grace initially concludes that these alleged supernatural sightings are simply part of their mutual taunts, but soon she too becomes convinced that the house is infested with poltergeists...
...Pelagia proves to be a callous lover, too...
...He has crossed his first tightrope...
...Grace is a virtual prisoner in her house because her children suffer from a rare allergy to light...
...But when the demonstration is over, they remain in his power...
...It had already succeeded in swindling crowds out of more than $68 million during the first three days of the release, and had created enough buzz to propel it into the list of the 100 top grossing films in history...
...And because their contracts with theater owners now allow them to collect 90 per cent of box office revenues for the first week of a run, they make a fortune whether or not word-of-mouth is positive...
...each had a narrative structure that played like a series of interminable codas...
...Both films include a Twilight Zone-like revelation that forces viewers to re-evaluate everything they think they have been experiencing...
...She is therefore constantly preoccupied with closing curtains and lighting candles...
...Allen's post-'70s films fall into two categories, both more interesting for their autobiographical than their esthetic properties: They are either pretentious diatribes about the reckless life of a brilliant artist, or lightweight exercises centered around a romance between a neurotic man and a much younger woman...
...Reversing the youthful optimism of the "ugly duckling" genre from which they grew, these pictures argued that if you are not already close to swanhood, love and success will forever elude you...
...Though it might have been more interesting otherwise, The Others has a surprise ending that is too reminiscent of The Sixth Sense, which was as tremendous a commercial hit as it was an esthetic failure...
...Take Kevin Smith, whose Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is the fourth sequel to Clerks, his low budget debut...
...If not completely free from the trends of the times, they reminded us that production money continues to be available to moviemakers who believe the art of film can surprise and inspire...
...Contemporary shockers loaded down with musical effects anticipate every bump, revealing directorial mistrust with the inherent horrors of plot and visual palate...
...And the mise-en-scène overflows with lovely touches...
...In each case this climax is initially startling, but not fully consistent with what has gone before and not worth two hours of deception...
...It is 1946, and while recovering from the Nazi occupation she prepares for the homecoming of her truant husband...
...Studios traditionally use August as a dumping ground for films that have no chance of success, but three of last month's releases were worth seeing...
...The supporting players, including Dan Aykroyd, John Schuck, Elizabeth Berkley, and Wallace Shawn, are wonderful...
...The protagonist of America s Sweethearts, working as a secretary to hermovie-star sister, wonherloverinpart because after shedding 60 pounds she looked exactly like the star (JuliaRoberts...
...It already seems like something endured a long time ago...
...Sadly, this sort of film has been out of style for so long that I can't think of contemporary actors who could play it...
...Practically every comedy released this summer registered another dispiriting trend—preaching salvation through the makeover...
...The doctor and Mandras are much more interesting and heroic than the leads...
...After this success, Hollywood will doubtless court Amenâbar furiously...
...In fact, the reverse is true...
...Full of flamboyant gestures, he tries to mug his way into our hearts, while she, but for one petulant diatribe, remains anemic...
...As long as the returns are high, Hollywood will continue to grind its faulty gears...
...I don't know what to make of the fact that all three of the pictures I have praised take place in the years surrounding World War II...
...Then compare those pictures with the claptrap corresponding to the recent economic boom and you will see what I'm talking about...
...Since it features two popular actors, Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz, I imagine it will find most of its viewers on video...
...Allen stars as C.W...
...And while The Others, like many of the summer's films, takes place principally in very dim light, here at least that is dictated by the story...
...They are less likely to promote "girl power" in theiryoung audience than to inspire a new generation of bulimics...
...The filmmakers were probably just trying to concoct something gun-loving Charlton Heston, who starred in the original and appeared briefly in the new version, could support wholeheartedly...
...her frantic Victorian matron is part repressed martinet, part doting mother...
...After losing the Best Director Oscar to Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan, he seems determined to bind his talent for romantic drama to a war that will give it weight...
...This is a difficult task because the children not only engage in fierce sibling rivalry, but also claim to be seeing ghosts...
...Flanagan matches her, projecting a disturbingly aloof concern for her mistress'plight...
...The period piece may be another of Hollywood's recyclables, but right now it is working better than any other...
...Their performances are hopelessly mannered...
...She is obscenely cruel to Mandras (Christian Bale), her fiancé, responding to his passionate expression of love by removing his engagement ring and turning her back on him...
...Apparently we need a recession or some worse calamity before audiences can be expected to reject the numbing nonsense that has been flitting across the screens...
...Many moviegoers complain that American films have never been worse, but with so few quality works offsetting the mainstream we are beginning to mistake what would once have seemed crumbs from the table for a full meal...
...it ended with a vicious dog biting the crotch of a minor character...
...The second error is far worse...
...With this latest disaster, Smith put most of his growing clout into the service of a single dirtyjoke...
...As Briggs and Fitzgerald try to catch the thieves, they follow a trail that leads to their own doors and, forced to protect one another, fall in love...
...Few modem horror directors recognize that nothing is more terrifying than silence...
...In Legally Blonde, a slight variation on the theme, Reese Witherspoon overcame jealous prejudices directed against her gorgeous body and perfect hair by enrolling at Harvard Law School and winning a high profile case in her first year...
...Characterizations in The Others are brilliantly drawn...
...exposure to the brightness of the sun could be fatal...
...No matter that the revamp trampled over the progressive politics of the 1968 masterpiece by adoring its central character, a militant drone, and singing the praises of nuclear power...
...Filmed in English, The Others is the story of Grace ("Nicole Kidman), a mother of two who lives in an enormous secluded mansion on the Isle of Jersey...
...The alleged "independent" film scene offers no respite...
...The script pulses with quick dialogue that is genuinely funny...
...He also earns the single moment when he allows quick cutting and screaming audio to come crashing together...
...But he made two fatal errors...
...Perhaps their creators, knowing how people behave in most contemporary movies, felt that only by tracking backward could they depict characters who can be both modern and credibly heroic...
...Madden and screenwriter Shawn Slovo, who based their film on the popular novel by Louis de Bernières, escape these unconvincing amours for a good 45 minutes by concentrating on the travails of Pelagia's father, Dr...
...Rush Hour IIand Jurassic Park III proved that nothing is more reliably lucrative than the sequel...
...Set on a Greek island during World War II, the film depicts a romance between beautiful native Pelagia (Cruz) and the title character (Cage), who is in charge of the occupying Italian Army...
...Their roles cry out for the likes of William Powell and Jean Harlow, Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan...
...Meanwhile, the merchants of Hollywood have perfected marketing strategies that sidestep consumer discontent...
...Using a key phrase that can snap them into his dreamy thrall, the hypnotist controls them by telephone, ordering them to steal from clients who have entrusted the firm with their security systems...
...The production design (by longtime Allen associate Santo Loquasto) and the cinematography (by Zhao Fei, who recently joined Allen's creative team) surpass the high standards the veteran filmmaker's work generally meets...
...The upshot is that the strengths of Captain Corelli's Mandolin are restricted to its perimeters...
...When grandmother Julie Andrews disdained the awkward posture and ugly spectacles of the gorgeous heroine in The Princess Diaries, she offered lessons in poise and a session with a hairdresser to correct such flaws faster than you could say"supercalifragilistic-expialidocious...
...Briggs, a top investigator at an insurance company who finds himself at odds with Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), hired to raise the outfit's profits by cutting corners...
...She goes about trying to restore household routine...
...We are bound to get many more atrocities like The Mummy Returns and Tomb Raider, half-witted attempts at cloning Raiders of the Lost Ark so cluttered with digital enhancement that they look more like murky cartoons than live-action pictures...
...The Curse of the Jade Scorpion falls into the second group, but is redeemed by the director's skillful attempt to imitate the screwball comedies of the 1930s...
...The Anniversary Party, Baby Boy, and Made, billed as serious pictures, were unambitious retreads of ideas already explored by John Cassavetes, Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese, respectively...
...He amuses the crowd by commanding them to behave foolishly...
...He's a leering sexist, set in his ways...
...All daytime outings are impossible...
...Allen is unconvincing as a streetwise shamus and Hunt is far too petulant to register as a romantic lead...
...After seething over Corelli's despicable conquest of her land, she falls into his arms, as if begging for more complete domination...
...It is not nearly as enterprising or original as the masterpieces of the 1970s, but it is a far cry from the deadeningly mild concoctions he has served up of late...
...They were notable mainly for their plotless meanderings...
...That is a shame, because the finest aspect of the movie is its landscape imagery, breafhtakingly captured by widescreen photography...
...The final item on my list is The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Woody Allen's best picture since Husbands and Wives (1992) and his funniest comedy in decades...
...The Others was the wonder of the season...
...I wished the film had been entirely about their wartime struggles, rather than the comparatively trivial love affair that occupies most of its attention...
...It remains to be seen whether he can go on exploring the complexities of fear and desire as he did in this film and keep within the boundaries of commercial viability...
...Cage and Cruz have absolutely no chemistry together...
...Inspiring a frenzied rush to the cineplex and pre-empting sellouts by multiplying the number of screens on which a movie plays, the studios can override the newspaper and television critics, whose reviews generally do not run or air until opening day...
...Iannis (John Hurt), and the fighters in the Greek resistance whom Mandras has joined...
...One evening, while both are out with a group from the company, they are called onstage by a hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) who, with the aid of a talisman called the Jade Scorpion, puts them into a trance...
...The result is a production that burns away in the memory as quickly as the digital flames on screen...
...He teamed current heartthrobs with a few veterans and had them all repeatedly utter a four-letter obscenity...
...We are being trained to expect that features will offer little more than what the teaser delivers: a frenzy of explosions and angry confrontations, an occasional glimpse of lush scenery, a touch of sweaty cleavage...
...First, the characters are too hateful to root for...
...Even America's Sweethearts, marketed as a romance, played this game...
...Nevertheless, the new film's lapses in resolution and profundity do not prevent it from surpassing The Sixth Sense in every respect...
...The scenarists try to redeem Corelli by representing him as an inept and inexperienced soldier, but that just makes him come across as a fool as well as a lothario...
...They promote eachnew release as a weekend event, bombarding the media with advertisements calculated to make audiences feel they will miss out if they don't see the film instantly...
...After being mysteriously abandoned by her servants, she hires a new staff that curiously appears before she can advertise for replacements...
...Still, the film offers generous compensations for the miscasting of the leads...
...the pleasures of Moulin Rouge were smothered by its director's punchdrunk tactics in the editing room...
Vol. 84 • September 2001 • No. 5
