Movie Review House of Sand and Fog

House of Sand and Fog (2003) 

Directed by Vadim Perelman 

Written by Shawn Lawrence Otto, Vadim Perelman

Starring Ben Kingsley, Shoreh Aghdashloo, Jennifer Connelly, Frances Fisher, Ron Eldard

Release Date December 19th, 2003 

Published December 17th, 2003 

This time of year we hear a lot of talk about so-called prestige pictures. Art films with opulent production design, heavy on the period detail and generally perceived as over the head of the average filmgoer. With a title like House of Sand and Fog, a pedigree that involves the adaptation of a National Book Award finalist and a starring duo of Oscar winners, it's not surprising that the perception of prestige is all over this film. Look deeper however, and you find a surprisingly populist picture. An Oprah Book Club selection and a bestseller. Also, you’ll find a story that is very compelling even if it is over the head of many filmgoers.

Jennifer Connelly stars as Kathy Lazaro, a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser who's only asset in the world is the home left to her by her late father. That however is taken from her when the city government sends cops to her home to evict her over a tax debt. The debt is bogus but unfortunately, Kathy hasn't bothered to open her mail in weeks and thus it will take months to sort out the problem.

In the meantime, her home is quickly sold to an Iranian immigrant, a former Colonel in the Iranian army named Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley). The Colonel and his family, wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and son Esmail (Jonathan Adhout), see the home as a mirror of their home in Iran that was on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Amir also sees it as an investment that, if fixed up, could be resold for three times its worth.

With the help of a legal aid lawyer played by Frances Fisher, Kathy is working to get her house back. After some back and forth wrangling, it's agreed that if Kathy can convince the Behrani's to sell the house back to the city for what he paid, then they can give it back to Kathy. Meanwhile, Kathy is being cared for by one of the cops who helped her move out, Deputy Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard). In a short time, the deputy has fallen for Kathy, has left his wife and family to care for her, and is willing to risk his job to help her get the house back.

All of this mundanely sets the table for some very compelling drama well strung together by Writer-Director Vadim Perelman. Having adapted a book by Andre Dubus, Perelman lends the story a visual style that evokes the title of the film without being heavy handed. The title is a double metaphor that ties the story together.

The performances of Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly are the strong points of the film and the Oscar winners are once again award-worthy. Kingsley is especially powerful as the deposed Colonel. Prone to violent outbursts and amazing compassion all brought about by his deep, religious faith. For a good portion of the film, he seems to be the villain but as the film winds to it's inevitably tragic conclusion, Kingsley's performance becomes the emotional center of the film and draws tears without forcing them.

As for Connelly, she is every bit as strong as Kingsley is, She infuses Kathy with the sadness and longing that wins our sympathy even as she acts in less than likable fashion. Her performance is all the stronger for having to carry the lunkheaded Ron Eldard as her love interest. Eldard plays Lester as the dumbest cop on the force. His performance is the weakest of the film and unfortunately, somewhat pivotal near the end. Thankfully, the film does not collapse because of him. Props to Director Perelman for getting the film to its astonishing and powerful finale even as Eldard's performance sinks.

Be sure to bring your antidepressants because as one of my fellow critics said after the screening, House of Sand and Fog may be the most depressing film of the year. Indeed, there is very little light in the film. It works because even depressing emotion can be cathartic and House earns it's awesomely cathartic and emotional ending. The label prestige picture is well earned by this emotional film.

Movie Review Stuck on You

Stuck on You (2003) 

Directed by The Farrelly Brothers 

Written by The Farrelly Brothers

Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Cher, Eva Mendes, Seymour Cassell, Dane Cook, Lin Shaye, Bella Thorne 

Release Date December 12th, 2003

Published December 11th, 2003 

The Farrelly Brothers signature had always been juvenile grossout humor tinged with sweetness. With Shallow Hal, they seemed somewhat tame in the gross stuff. Now with their latest film Stuck On You, they seem to have moved beyond the grossout humor completely. What's really surprising however is that they prove just how much they don't need it anymore. This funny, sweet and unusual comedy about conjoined twins is some of the best work the Brothers have done since There's Something About Mary.

Walt (Greg Kinnear) and Bob (Matt Damon) were born attached by a single liver so dangerously small that doctors don't believe they can be separated. Thus the two have gone through life together playing sports, dating and running a restaurant on Martha's Vineyard where friends and family have come to completely accept the boys as they are.

Walt has recently become restless. His ambition has always been to be an actor and his one man shows at the community theater have all been well reviewed, even as poor Bob suffered from severe stage fright. Walt wishes to go to Hollywood and despite his reservations, Bob finally relents. The two leave behind their comfortable surroundings for the big city and Walt's shot at the big time.

Once in Hollywood it's not long until Walt hits the big time with a role opposite Cher on a CSI-esque show. All is not as it seems however, as Cher has hand selected Walt to be on the show in hopes that his being a conjoined twin will get the show canceled. Much to Cher's dismay, Walt turns out to be a hit and the producers find it easy to hide Bob behind props and with special effects. Even after their secret gets out, Walt becomes an even bigger hit.

As for Walt, moving to Los Angeles offers him the chance to meet his internet pen pal May (Wenn Yann Shih) who does not know he is conjoined. This leads to rather obvious jokes as Walt and Bob date May, with the help of an actress friend from their apartment complex April (Eva Mendes) coming along as Walt's date. The joke is obvious but the actors play it so well that it's easy to overlook that.

Naturally the subjects of surgery to separate themselves come up and these scenes are really terrific. I love how the film explains the age difference between Kinnear and Damon along with various other physiological complications. All of it handled without falling back on grossout humor but with the Farrelly Brothers other signature, sweet-natured ridiculousness. Both Bob and Walt are typical, delightfully clueless Farrelly characters who can't imagine why anyone would find them unusual.

The cast is terrific from top to bottom. Kinnear and Damon have a terrific chemistry with Damon really surprising us with his comic talent. You expect Kinnear to have great comic timing as he showed on TV's Talk Soup and the movie Sabrina. For Damon however, though he showed terrific humility in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, this is his first full-length comedic performance and I was surprised how well he pulled it off.

The supporting cast is every bit the equal of the leads with Eva Mendes really standing out. Her bubble-headed actress April provides some of the biggest laughs of the film with her ditzy reactions to the twins’ condition. The way she just thinks that the twins being connected is totally natural is priceless and part of the film’s charm. Cher is also good, perfectly willing to make herself the joke in what is her biggest acting role in a while. Watch out for a pair of terrific cameos as well, Meryl Streep shows up near the end and brings the house down.

The film is not as funny as Kingpin or as sweet as There's Something About Mary but Stuck On You proves that with or without shocking the audience with sight gags, the Farrelly brothers are just plain funny.

Movie Review Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give (2003) 

Directed by Nancy Meyers

Written by Nancy Meyers 

Starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand, Amanda Peet, Jon Favreau

Release Date December 12th, 2003 

Published December 11th, 2003 

A strange thing can happen to an actor when they get almost too good at what they do. Audiences no longer perceive what they do as a performance. Jack Nicholson is one of those actors with that wonderful problem. After years of showing off that roguish, untamable charm, many people believe that is the man in real Life. Nicholson's personal life, from a tabloid perspective, does nothing to change that perception. Nicholson's new film Something's Gotta Give, co-starring Diane Keaton, and directed by Nancy Meyers, slyly plays to Jack's perception and then against it to terrific romantic and comedic effect.

Nicholson stars as Harry Sanborn, a record company owner with a fetish for younger woman. Specifically, Harry only goes for woman under 30. His latest little twinkie is Marin Berry (Amanda Peet) who brings Harry to her mother's beach house in the Hamptons for a romantic weekend. Unfortunately, she didn't know her mother, Erica (Keaton), would be there, leading to an awkward meeting in the kitchen between Erica and Harry in his underwear.

From there, things go from bad to worse after a disastrous dinner. Harry and Marin retire to the bedroom and Harry has a heart attack. On the orders of doctors, Harry can't travel and must stay at the beach house, even though Marin is returning to the city. Left alone, Harry and Erica bicker in your traditional romantic comedy fashion until they find a little common ground, and after Harry accidentally catches Erica in the nude. This begins a romantic series of events that aren't what you expect.

This being a romantic comedy, there must be arbitrary roadblocks to keep the lovers apart. One of those is Harry's doctor, played by Keanu Reeves, who takes an interest in Erica. Others are less obvious and are played as emotional roadblocks but are really choices that are made according to the needs of the script.

Director Nancy Meyers knows her chick flicks, having directed Mel Gibson in the blockbuster What Woman Want. Meyers knows the right comic beats to hit and how to get what she wants from her actors. That said, she brings little else to the table as a director. Meyers must rely heavily on the skill of her actors to carry off the material and lucky for her, she is truly blessed in Something's Gotta Give.

To watch a pair of pro's like Nicholson and Keaton fall in love onscreen is a true joy and while not all of the situations the characters find themselves in work, these two brilliant actors make a good deal of them work. Most of the best comedic moments in the film are played with merely a sideways glance, a skill that you just can't teach.

The first half of Something's Gotta Give plays off of what you expect of Jack Nicholson, that free swinging playboy reputation that will follow him for the rest of his life. However, once the two leads are left alone, the film becomes more about Keaton's wonderfully neurotic Erica. A playwright, Erica begins writing her moments with Harry into her latest play leading up to one of the film’s great gags on the set of the play just before it opens.

Something's Gotta Give has elements of your typical romantic comedy, a few too many of those elements for my taste. It wants to be insightful about romance in the later years of life and aging in general but its tone is a little too light for any real insight. What the film has going for it is two terrific actors who never seem to have peaked even as they get older. For that reason, I recommend Something's Gotta Give.

Movie Review Love Don't Cost a Thing

Love Don't Cost A Thing (2003) 

Directed by Troy Beyer 

Written by Troy Beyer 

Starring Nick Cannon, Christina Milian, Steve Harvey, Kenan Thompson, Kal Penn

Release Date December 12th, 2003 

Published December 12th, 2003  

Of all of the movies that I thought deserved another take, the dopey Patrick Dempsey teen comedy Can’t Buy Me Love never occurred to me. Despite being an iconic 80’s film for many, to me its a slight comedy about a nerd who buys his way into high school popularity had overtones of outright prostitution. I would have preferred to welcome its fall into 80’s obscurity. The ever unoriginal Hollywood swill factory however disagreed with my assessment and thus we have Love Don’t Cost A Thing, a cynical “urban” (read black) take on the story.

Nick Cannon, star of last year’s drumming drama Drumline, stars as Alvin Johnson. Alvin is a high school nerd who spends his time with his nerdy friends rebuilding cars and dreaming of what it would be like to have access to the popular kid’s hallway of their high school. Yes, the high school has a hallway where the rich, popular bullies and their hot girlfriends are separated from the rabble, indicating that even the high school teachers are in on this anti-nerd conspiracy.

Alvin’s dream girl is a popular cheerleader named Paris Morgan (Christina Milian) whose current boyfriend is an NBA star who jumped directly from high school to the NBA. Paris has no occasion to ever speak to Alvin until one night when she borrows her mother’s car and crashes it while arguing on the phone with her boyfriend. While getting the car looked at Paris finds that her mother will find out about the accident unless the car is fixed immediately. Enter Alvin with his car expertise and just enough of his own money to pay for the parts. In exchange for fixing the car, Paris will be Alvin’s girl and in the process help him become popular.

What a shock it is then when the plan succeeds and popularity goes to young Alvin’s head. Alvin drops his nerdy friends, begins wearing trendy clothes and a new hairstyle and before long, Alvin surpasses Paris in his high school stature. Do you think he has a comeuppance in his future? For his part, Nick Cannon affects a nerdy black kid better than I expected. That said, the part as written has him changing rather unconvincingly from Urkel to Puff Daddy and only the Urkel part works. Cannon is a charisma-challenged actor who has yet to show a spark of the stardom that has seemed thrust upon him in the past year since the debut of his Nickelodeon kids show in 2002.

Pop starlet Christina Milian equates herself better than expected, though expectations place her just ahead of Britney Spears on the pop-tart-turned-actress-chart well behind the far more accomplished Mandy Moore. The part as written by director Troy Miller affects depth by having Paris write bad poetry and play the guitar. She also bemoans popularity as a job rather than a mere social status, an interesting idea that goes nowhere.

Director Troy Beyer adapted the screenplay of Can’t Buy Me Love, written by Michael Swerdlick. The word adaptation is used loosely. She essentially just traces within the lines of the original film, changing only minor plot points and the ethnicity of the characters.

Therein lies the most insidious problem of the film. The retrofitting of this unoriginal idea for African American audiences is a sad cynical attempt to capitalize on the paucity of films with African-American lead characters. Because there are so few films with black, lead characters, African-American audiences are prone to support any film that features a black face. This has caused Hollywood’s cynical mass marketing machine to continue to limit opportunities for African-Americans in order to maintain them as a niche market. Assuming they are willing to accept cheap, easy to market trash like Love Don’t Cost A Thing at the expense of more challenging, artistic films with African-American lead casts.

Such cynicism is nothing new from Hollywood but when it deals with race, it becomes far more serious. A film as slight as Love Don’t Cost A Thing doesn’t have any kind of social agenda in its creation. Rather, it has one thrust upon it because there are so few films with predominantly African American casts and even fewer good ones. That is not due to a lack of talented African-American filmmakers but rather due to cheap knock offs and shortsighted money grubbing of the kind that creates movies like Love Don't Cost A Thing. 

Movie Review Honey

Honey (2003) 

Directed by Billie Woodruff

Written by Kim Watson

Starring Jessica Alba, Mekhi Pfifer, Joy Bryan, Lil Romeo

Release Date December 5th, 2003 

Published December 6th, 2003 

The TV series Dark Angel is one of my all-time favorites. I videotaped each episode and now have them all on DVD. I stopped short of getting the barcode tattoo on the back of my neck; I'm a fan but I'm not crazy. That said, when I first saw the trailer for Honey I wasn't as excited to see Jessica Alba as I should have been, probably because I could see the film’s formula construction from a mile away. Poor inner city girl makes good leaves behind friends and family to find success and is burned before returning to her roots. Sadly, seeing the film confirmed my feelings.

Alba is Honey Daniels, a wannabe video dancer who dreams of shaking her stuff in hip-hop videos. For now, she subsists by working as a bartender, working part-time in a record store, and teaching hip-hop dancing at a community center run by her stock, disapproving mother (played by Lonette McKee.) Honey finally gets a shot at her dream when a music video director plucks her out of the club where she parties with her best friend Gina (a stunningly hot Joy Bryant).

The director is Michael Ellis (David Moscow), a smarmy white guy who acts the part of a stereotypical black person to ingratiate himself with the artists whose videos he directs. Honey is conveniently oblivious to the fact that Michael likes her for more than her dance steps. Honey may be distracted by the more attractive advances of a neighborhood barber named Chaz (Mekhi Phifer), who woos her with his integrity as much as with his charm.

Honey is also distracted by attempting to help a pair of inner-city youngsters, Benny (Rapper Lil’ Romeo) and his little brother Raymond (cute-as-a-button Zachary Williams). The kids are terrific little dancers who come from an abusive home and are skirting the edges of a drug-dealing gang. Honey hopes that getting them in a music video could help them stay straight but when she rebuffs the director’s advances, the video is called off and the kids are back on the street.

This story requires Moscow's video director to act immensely irrational in a role that is already beyond grating because of his gangsta posing. Just once, I would like to see this stock characterization reversed. This character accepts the rejection and becomes a supportive friend instead of an over-the-top mustache-twirling villain. Just once.

This formula is so familiar that even lines of dialogue can be recited by rote. Director Billie Woodruff (a former music video director) brings only better music to this formula. Directing as if the film were only a clothesline from which to hang a soundtrack album, Honey parades a number of well-known hip-hop artists past the camera for cameos. Blaque, Jadakiss and Ginuwine have unmemorable screen time, while Missy Elliot steals the movie with her two scenes that take up little more than five minutes on screen. I wouldn't mind seeing Missy get her own film.

For her part, Alba is, at the very least, very committed to her formula role. She infuses Honey with sweetness and tenderness that sells her character’s best qualities. However, when forced by the script, she becomes merely a pawn of the god-awful plot machinations. Her forced obliviousness to the director’s amorous advances are laughable, right up until she finally figures it out. Her romance with Phifer's Chaz is believable because both actors are attractive and look good together. Phifer is slumming big time with this lightweight material; his charisma and presence deserve a far better film.

This poor-kid-makes-good formula is as old as film itself, but has taken on a more insidious quality as Hollywood has moved into its pre-packaged, assembly-line era of filmmaking. Honey is the type of film that can be mass produced and recycled to endless degrees and has been. Sadly it will be again. As I love to point out, Honey is yet another Hollywood movie that had a poster before it had a script. God help us.

Movie Review Timeline

Timeline (2003)

Directed by Richard Donner 

Written by George Nolfi, Jeff Maguire

Starring Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connelly, David Thewlis, Anna Friel, Michael Sheen, Ethan Embry, Martin Csokas

Release Date November 26th, 2003 

Published November 26th, 2003 

It's been five years since director Richard Donner last stepped behind a camera. That was for the deathly Lethal Weapon 4, a creaky cash grab of an action movie that made even the indomitable Mel Gibson look bad. In fact, it has been nearly 10 years since Donner has directed a good movie, 1994's Maverick (also with Gibson.) In his comeback, adapting Michael Crichton's time traveling novel, Timeline, Donner continues the downward slide of his once great career.

Paul Walker stars as Chris, the son of archaeologist Professor Edward Johnston (Billy Connelly). When the professor disappears on a job, his son and his crew of archaeology students including Marek (Gerard Butler), David (Ethan Embry) and Kate (Frances O'Conner) must follow his clues to find him. The Professor's last job was working for a mysterious corporation called ITC. The corporation’s scientists have figured a way to send human beings back in time but only to one specific location: Castleberg, France in the 14th century on the eve of war between the French and British.

Well, wouldn't you these students just happen to be experts in that exact era? In fact they are excavating that very battlefield. What an amazing coincidence. ITC has sent the Professor back to the 14th century and now want to send Chris and company back there to find him and bring him back. Oh but if it were that easy, we wouldn't have a movie. Accompanied by a shady military guy played by Neal McDonough and his two soon-to-be-dead lackeys, the gang has six hours to find the professor and get back to the future.

For Donner, working entirely on autopilot, the time travel plot is merely a clothesline on which to hang one lame action sequence after another. The action has the period authenticity of a high school production of Shakespeare. When we aren't being annoyed with the lame action scene, we are treated to plot points that screenwriters Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi obviously thought were clever. The script ham-handedly sets up things in the present that will payoff in the past. When the supposed payoffs come, the actors practically scream, "see how this paid off, wow aren't we clever.”

Some of the plot points pay off so obviously you can't help but giggle at the goofiness of it all. The actors react like children who just discovered a light switch and want to explain to the audience how it works.

For his part, Walker turns in yet another young Keanu Reeves impression. All that is missing is the signature "Whoa." Walker looks about as comfortable in period garb as Dom Deluise would in a thong. The rest of the cast isn't much better, especially a slumming Frances O'Connor as Walker's love interest. O'Connor was so good in Spielberg's A.I that scripts like this should be easy to pass on but somehow, here she is.

Donner's best days are clearly behind him. The man who made Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon II, arguably the best buddy movie franchise ever, and the man who made arguably the best superhero movie of all time--Superman with Christopher Reeve--has now settled into a depressing groove of just simply picking up his check and turning out below-average action movies that make for great posters but not much else.

Movie Review The Haunted Mansion

The Haunted Mansion (2003) 

Directed by Rob Minkoff 

Written by David Berenbaum 

Starring Eddie Murphy, Terence Stamp, Wallace Shawn, Jennifer Tilly 

Release Date November 26th, 2003 

Published November 25th, 2003 

It may be time to finally put our memories of Eddie Murphy 'comic genius' away for good. It seems we will never see Murphy's talent ever again. With every mediocre family movie in which he picks up an eight figure paycheck, the Eddie Murphy of our memory dies a little. Eddie can't go and make an edgy, raunchy, action comedy anymore because it might cost him his next family movie paycheck. With his latest mediocre family movie, The Haunted Mansion, Murphy pounds yet another nail into the coffin of his former comic persona.

In The Haunted Mansion, which is based on the Disney theme park ride, Murphy is real estate maven Jim Evers of Evers and Evers Real Estate. The family's cringe-inducing catchphrase is “Evers and Evers making your family happy for Evers and Evers.” Yikes. In an all too familiar plot, Jim works way too much, and his wife Sara (Marsha Tomason) is upset that he doesn't spend enough time with the kids, daughter Megan (Aree Davis) and son Michael (Marc John Jeffries).

To that end, Jim proposes a family trip to the lake with no work at all for the entire weekend. No work until a new client comes calling with a huge property to sell. It's a gothic 1800s mansion called Gracie Manor and if the Evers want the listing they have to come immediately. In what is supposed to be a quick detour from their trip, the family stops at Gracie Manor to meet the owner and wind up spending the night with ghosts, zombies, and various other horror movie staples.

The ghosts in the Haunted Mansion are Master Gracie (Nathaniel Parker) and his staff, headed up by Ramsley (Terrence Stamp) the butler and his assistants played by Wallace Shawn and Dina Spybey. Jennifer Tilly also shows up as a gypsy in magic ball. The ghosts of Gracie Manor can only escape if their curse is lifted and the vagaries of the curse involve a woman who looks exactly like Sara Evers. When Sara is captured by the ghosts, it's up to Jim to save her and find some other way to lift the curse.

Eddie Murphy, as he does even in his worst films, shows flashes of the kind of comedy we know he's capable of. Murphy remains charismatic and occasionally that comic spark comes back. But sadly, for the most part, Eddie Murphy in The Haunter Mansion is in pick up a check mode. Murphy's Jim Evers is a bumbling scaredy cat channeling Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein, until it's time for him to save the day. That might not sound bad but Murphy's strength is not being Abbott or Costello and his idea of broad physical comedy is forced and unpleasant. 

Poor Terrence Stamp looks, in every scene, as if he can barely keep from rolling his eyes. Stamp's boredom with this lame material is evident in his every gesture, facial expression and line of dialogue. Like Murphy, he's not here to make The Haunted Mansion good, he's here to get his paycheck and go do something else. This is a feeling that permeates the entirety of The Haunted Mansion, a complete disinterest in actually making a good movie. 

Director Rob Minkoff is one of those studio hacks that Disney keeps on the payroll just for movies like this: Mediocre, inoffensive family comedies that need merely to transfer script to screen. Minkoff shows little directorial flair in The Haunted Mansion. It's likely he could spend his entire career turning out mediocre hits like this one or another Stuart Little movie. The Haunted Mansion is not an offensively bad movie. Merely a mediocre movie. Of course I've often wondered just which is worse, mediocre or just plain bad.

Movie Review Master and Commander The Far Side of the World

Master and Commander The Far Side of the World (2003) 

Directed by Peter Weir 

Written by Peter Weir 

Starring Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D'arcy, Billy Boyd

Release Date November 14th, 2003 

Published November 13th, 2003 

I've never been exposed to the work of author Patrick O'Brien. His high-seas adventures are the kind of tales that always appealed to my father, a student of history, especially naval history. So Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World is an opportunity for my dad and I to bond over a movie, the film’s historical accuracy pulled apart over a dinner cooked by my mom. So you can understand why I was looking forward to this film and why I might seem to gush a little bit about this tremendous Oscar-worthy adventure.

Take the essential elements of Errol Flynn's classic high seas serials and a dash of Herman Melville and you get a sense of what you’re in for in Master and Commander. Lucky Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) is the Captain of the British navy ship the Surprise. Lucky Jack's mission is to hunt down and either sink or capture the French profiteer ship the Acheron (pronounced as Ack-Eron). It's 1805, and Britain is at war with France and its leader, Napoleon. 

Though the Acheron is larger and better armed than the Surprise, the Surprise’s 197-man crew has complete faith in Captain Jack--everyone, that is, but the ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany). It's not that Maturin doesn't trust Captain Jack's abilities, however he functions as Jack's conscience as the captain begins to see the Acheron as his white whale. Two times early in the film the Acheron snuck up behind the Surprise and nearly sank it. The captain is determined to not let it happen again. Maturin feels that returning to Britain for repairs is a more prudent solution.

Even as Captain Jack and Maturin disagree vehemently over tactics, the two are good friends who spend their free time dueting, Maturin on the cello and Jack on his violin. Crowe and Bettany played a similar relationship in the Oscar winner A Beautiful Mind and their familiarity and ease working together shows.

The rest of the cast of Master and Commander run together and, especially during the battle scenes, it's difficult to tell them apart. The one other cast member able to make a real impression is Max Perkis as Blakeney, a teenager who both Captain Jack and Maturin take under their wing. Blakeney is also quite interesting from a historical standpoint as not only a teenager, maybe only 13 years old, but an officer on the Surprise. This seems unreal but it is historically accurate that children as young as 13 were taking positions in the British navy.

Master and Commander is the first non-documentary ever to be allowed to film on the famed Galapagos Islands, where Maturin is allowed to indulge his love of nature and, in a pre-Darwin scientific discovery, develops an obsession with a flightless bird that would be an amazing find. It would be, but in his search of the island, he discovers the hiding place of the Acheron and must rejoin Captain Jack for the film's climactic battle.

Based on the first and the 10th book of Patrick O'Brien's 20 volume series, Master and Commander was a dream project for producer and Fox Chairman Tom Rothman who acquired the rights to the books while O'Brien was still alive but was unable to get it made until after the author’s death in 2001. It wasn't until three studios--Fox, Miramax, and Universal--pooled $125 million that the film even seemed viable. Finally, after landing director Peter Weir and Crowe, Rothman had the tools to turn the dense, character-driven adventure into a film.

With so much rich dialogue and innumerable characters Master and Commander seems an unlikely blockbuster but in the capable hands of Weir, who also co-wrote the script with John Collee, it is an epic action adventure movie that evokes classic Hollywood filmmaking. In its scope and scale it's reminiscent of Lawrence Of Arabia, but may be more akin to Gladiator, another modern epic that also starred Crowe. The combination of realistic stunts and seamless CGI is what true blockbusters should aspire to. Too many computer generated effects can be distracting and more often annoying. Master and Commander proves there is no substitute for real actors and real stunts. Let the Oscar season begin with Master and Commander firing the first shot.

Movie Review Love Actually

Love, Actually 2003 

Directed by Richard Curtis

Written by Richard Curtis 

Starring Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley

Release Date November 7th, 2003 

Published November 4th, 2003 

In Hollywood, the romantic comedy has been beaten to death by clichés and predictable, cookie-cutter plotting. For fans of the genre, our only solace comes when Working Title Films out of Britain releases yet another ingeniously witty, romantic comedy written by Richard Curtis. The man wrote Four Weddings and A Funeral and Notting Hill, and adapted the screenplay for Bridget Jones's Diary. Now, stepping behind the camera for the first time, Curtis shows he could be an industry all to himself writing and directing hit romantic comedies forever. His seemingly endless wit is once again on display in Love Actually, an epic romance if only for the names in its cast.

There are so many different actors and plots in Love Actuallythat it's difficult to condense, so I will lay out the best of the numerous plots individually. Hugh Grant has the best part as the newly-elected British Prime Minister. The film is set apparently sometime in the near future and there are some very funny moments where the script takes loving shots at current real-life Prime Minister Tony Blair. 

As the new prime minister prepares for the arrival of the American President, he begins a flirtation with his tea server Natalie (newcomer Martine McCutcheon). Curtis does an excellent job in balancing the job of prime minister with the script’s flights of romantic fantasy. When the American President arrives, a priceless cameo that I won't spoil, Grant's Prime Minister is allowed to have a point of view on world politics, especially Britain's perceived position as America's bitch, where less courageous directors would have glossed over any actual politics.

Laura Linney has another terrific part as a shy American transplant who is constantly glued to her cell phone. She is nursing a serious crush on one of her co-workers, a crush that everyone in her office from her boss (Alan Rickman) to the bitchy secretary knows about. Even the object of her affection knows about her feelings but is waiting for her to act. This subplot is bittersweet because Linney has a secret that is linked to her constantly ringing cell phone. It's another great piece of work by Linney who has long been one of my favorite actresses.

The most romantic of all the plots involves Colin Firth as a writer who moves away to France after finding his wife cheating with his brother. After moving into his French villa, he hires a maid named Aurelia (Lucia Moniz). The two have an interesting working relationship because Aurelia is Portuguese and doesn't speak a word of English. Their attempts at communicating are sweet and funny moments of misunderstanding. This plot shouldn't work but it does because of the subtle complicated work of Colin Firth. The plot is rushed and predictable but Firth is so winning you can't help but cheer for his happiness.

That is only a minor brushing of the characters in Love Actually, each of the characters I already mentioned have connections to other characters who have their own subplots. Emma Thompson plays Rickman's wife who wonders if her husband is cheating on her. Liam Neeson shows up as a widower left to raise a 10 year old stepson. Keira Knightley is a newlywed who has a secret admirer who happens to be her husband's best man. Bill Nighy plays an aging rocker, modeled on Mick Jagger, whose awful Christmas song plays throughout the film. The song, a holiday reworking of the pop standard “Love Is All Around '' is intentionally bad and Nighy's character freely admits it and his honesty makes the song defiantly a hit.

And there are still more plots I don't have the time or patience to describe. The cast is unwieldy but Curtis finds an almost awe-inspiring way of giving each time to develop and be resolved in ways that are satisfying and funny. Towards the end, just when you think there is no way to resolve all of these plot strands Curtis returns to a piece of dialogue from Hugh Grant's opening voiceover and uses it to unite the entire cast and make a grand point about the nature of love and life. It's a work of subtle brilliance that will cause audience members to leave the theater smiling at the conclusion of the film.

This is a wonderfully exuberant film filled with music, love, and romance that is never saccharine. That wonderful British wit is always in place and keeps the plot from spilling over into super sweetness. Something about the British accent that makes even the most wildly over-the-top flights of fancy seem smart and meaningful. This is one excellent romantic comedy from the last group of producers, director, and actors that can do it right.

Movie Review Shattered Glass

Shattered Glass (2003) 

Directed by Billy Ray 

Written by Billy Ray 

Starring Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgard, Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, Hank Azaria, Steve Zahn

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published October 30th, 2003 

The New Republic magazine prides itself as the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. Its pretentiousness has been earned by years of literate intelligent discourse on policy and international politics. Appreciate their perspective or not, you have to respect that they get into these subjects that so many average Americans think are boring.

So it was a huge black eye for the storied magazine to find out one of its writers had faked numerous stories. If there is one cardinal sin in journalism, it's lying, and Stephen Glass lied on a scale that dwarfs the lies of your average tabloid rag. The story of Glass's lies and how he was finally caught are the subject of the adroit and fascinating film Shattered Glass.

Hayden Christensen stars as Glass, the youngest writer on a staff whose median age is 26 years old. The 22-year-old Glass is a rising star with a habit of looking into fantastic stories. The stories occasionally raise suspicions but the puppy dog sweetness of Glass disarms co-workers who couldn't believe Steve would make up such a story. For the most part Stephen's stories check out, he has detailed notes and phone numbers from his subjects. Those subjects can tend to be unwieldy for fact checkers, but there is enough verifiable truth to what Stephen reports that the stories go through.

As the film progresses there is a very subtle shift of focus from the character Stephen Glass to the uncovering of Glass's deception, seen through the eyes of Peter Sarsgaard's New Republic Editor Chuck Lane. The shift is signaled almost unconsciously through scenes of Glass working late to cover his lies and Lane at home with his wife and daughter. These scenes allow the audience to choose sides without feeling bad for abandoning poor Stephen.

Coming to the story with a good knowledge of what Stephen Glass did and the type of person he is (his appearance on 60 Minutes earlier this year was the tip of the iceberg as to his serial compulsion toward hiding the truth), I never felt much of any sympathy for Glass. Thus, I came to Shattered Glass with my mind made up about the man and his crimes. There are however many people willing to like Glass as he's portrayed by the gifted Hayden Christensen. His Stephen Glass is a seemingly sweet natured glad hander who remembers everybody's birthday and offers to help you move without being asked.

I read another reviewer who was familiar with the real life players and who thought the film built up Chuck Lane as more pious than he ever truly was. I would disagree with that assessment in the context of the film. Perhaps the reviewer is too close to the real situation to consider the film. Lane as played by Peter Sarsgaard is merely a put-upon editor who happens to have a serious breach of journalistic ethics thrust in his lap. 

He rightfully despises Glass and his crimes and scenes early in the film establish the two characters at odds from the beginning. Personality-wise, it's not hard for me to dislike the serial glad-handing Glass and his childish reaction to anything critical. The character of Chuck Lane communicates a similar dislike throughout the film that makes angry outbursts near the end of the film nearly as personal as professional.

Few films have shone such a clear light on the journalistic process. How a piece goes from the reporter to the page and exactly how flawed that process can be if abused. First time director Billy Ray tells his story on two levels, getting to know the character of Stephen Glass and also showing us the behind the scenes action at a magazine. If only for a moment, it makes you consider all that goes into your favorite magazines.

What really stays with you after the film however is the performances of Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard, who perfectly inhabit their opposing characters. Christensen brings an almost creepy quality to the sweetness that so many people liked about the real Stephen Glass. That creepiness makes it that much easier to dislike him, and is important for audience members who don't understand how he did such a horrible thing. Sarsgaard, despite what others might say, never makes Chuck Lane into a journalistic crusader for ethics. He's a journalist and editor who is doing the right thing and has a righteous outrage toward Glass for the serious damage he did to the credibility of a magazine that made its reputation on credibility.

As a debut behind the camera, Billy Ray shows he knows how to tell a compelling story. His visual style doesn't leave much to the memory but this is a character piece and as such, it succeeds marvelously. Shattered Glass is one of the year’s best films.

Movie Review The Human Stain

The Human Stain (2003) 

Directed by Robert Benton 

Written by Nicholas Meyer 

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise 

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published November 4th, 2003 

This is truly one of the worst titles you've ever seen. It's made worse by the fact that it is only part metaphor and does in fact refer to the gutter-minded definition your so ashamed to ascribe it. In his 2000 novel The Human Stain, writer Phillip Roth makes it clear that his title refers to that infamous blue dress owned by Monica Lewinsky. Yes there is a deeper metaphorical meaning to the title for the books characters but it's the Monica definition that people come away with and in so doing, forget that there is a rather compelling drama behind that title.

For the film adaptation of Roth's novel, director Robert Benton may have been better off without the literal title. The film is all about the metaphor with little mention of Roth's contempt for the Clinton impeachment and to his book’s first act plot point. You shouldn't judge a book (or movie) by it's title but in this case it's hard not to. So many people will avoid seeing this film because of that title that it renders the whole thing meaningless.

Coleman Silk (Sir Anthony Hopkins) has, in his time as Dean of Classics at Berkshire College, turned the sleepy small town institution into the shadow of an Ivy League University. In so doing he has made many friends and many more enemies. Therefore, it's not surprising then that when he makes one seemingly minor mistake on the eve of his retirement that his enemies seize upon it to get rid of him early.

Coleman's mistake was referring to a pair of students who never showed up in his class as "spooks.” Coleman's reference was to the ghostly definition of the word but because the missing students were African-Americans a complaint was filed and some people seized on the other definition of the word spooks as a racial epithet. And so it is that the very people Coleman himself hired at the college that shove him out the door.

The controversy is ironic because Coleman himself is African-American though you would not know it to look at him. He has for most of his 71 years passed himself off as Jewish and because of his light skin has never had to admit to anyone he is black. Coleman never told his wife of more than 40 years or his colleagues at the college or his closest friend a writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who after Coleman's death must piece his life together from the scraps of lies and half truths he left behind.

Coleman's death is another great source of controversy. After quitting his job, losing his wife to an embolism and becoming a pariah in his small town, Coleman takes up a scandalous affair with Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) a woman half his age, divorced and working as a janitor at the college. Faunia's ex-husband Les (Ed Harris) is a Vietnam veteran and highly unstable.

The situation that Coleman has placed himself in is one that is obviously dangerous. It's a situation that someone of his dignity and intelligence should never find himself in, as his friends including Nathan and his Lawyer Nelson Primus (Clark Gregg) remind him constantly. However as Faunia tells him when they first meet, action is the enemy of thought. Coleman acts without thinking allowing lust to overcome logic. Whether or not Coleman and Faunia can achieve something beyond lust is one of the film’s central questions.

Parallel to the main love story is Coleman's history. Flashbacks take us back 50 years to when Coleman (played in the past by newcomer Wentworth Miller) first decided his life would be easier if lived as a white Jew. While attending school in New York City, Coleman meets a beautiful Midwestern blonde named Steena Paulson (Jacinda Barrett). Steena has no idea that Coleman is African-American, she assumes he is Jewish which explains his ethnic looks. It seems like true love but when Coleman brings Steena home to meet his mother, he gets his first lesson in why his life might be easier if he pretended he was someone else.

The backstory is actually far more interesting than the central love story. Wentworth Miller and Jacinda Barrett light up the screen with a fiery chemistry. Ms. Barrett is particularly surprising as she pulls off the wide-eyed innocence of a mid twentieth century Midwesterner. Until now she has been cast as sexpots, typecast from her time as a one the over-sexed simpletons on MTV's The Real World (she was in the London cast).

Of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman make strong impressions, they are terrific actors. Their plot however is astoundingly dreary. Any momentary light that shines in their relationship is punished and it's only in the flashbacks to Coleman and Steena, before she dumped him, that we get any reprieve from the constant onslaught of misery.

Director Robert Benton has a knack for capturing older male characters preparing to conquer their old age. It was Benton who directed Paul Newman to his best late years performance in Nobody's Fool. Here he does well by Sir Anthony Hopkins by giving the legendary actor his first romantic lead role. Unfortunately, as great as Mr. Hopkins is, I never believed he and Wentworth Miller were playing the same character. After leaving his job at the college Coleman's connection to his past is left only as an ironic passage in his life. The film shifts it's focus to his relationship with Faunia which has nothing to do with race. It's an entirely different plot.

As for the allusion to the Lewinsky scandal, that was far more the book’s concern than the films. It is referred on more than one occasion and as in the book it is brought up as an example of political correctness run amok. It runs parallel to the ridiculousness of Coleman's own persecution for his racist remark that wasn't racist. Clinton's indiscretion was bad but not impeachable. 

The novel used Coleman and Faunia's many problems to magnify why Clinton-Lewinsky was such a meaningless endeavor, the movie makes the same reference and both seem heavy-handed to those of us who already realize what a bunch of trumped up ridiculousness Clinton-Lewinsky was. Of course issues of race, and death and family are more important than whether or not Bill Clinton got a BJ in the Oval Office. We know that! Thankfully the film doesn't linger on the point.

I would have liked to see more about Coleman growing up. Pretending to be white while coming of age in the 50's and 60’s with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, that has more inherent drama than any semi-controversial small town May-December romance ever could. Someday someone should revisit Roth's novel and extrapolate on the ideas put forth about Coleman's youth. That sounds like a movie I would like to see.

Movie Review Scary Movie 3

Scary Movie 3 (2003) 

Directed by David Zucker 

Written by Craig Mazin, Pat Proft 

Starring Anna Faris, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, Leslie Nielsen, Simon Rex, Eddie Griffin 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 23rd, 2003 

Scream was a film that changed the rules of modern horror forever by turning its conventions in on itself. Scary Movie had a timely “of the moment” quality even if the idea of parodying a film that was a parody in some respects itself was a little out there. Scary Movie succeeded, piling satire on top of pop culture scatology and earned its place amongst the best of modern madcap comedies. The sequel however could not match the energy of the original and most importantly its humor.

Now with a third sequel, Scary Movie has come to mirror the trilogy that inspired it. Scream 3 had none of the originality and creative energy of the first Scream and Scary Movie 3 is merely a pale imitation of its progenitor. The Zucker Brothers, the team behind the Airplane and Naked Gun films, take the creative reins from the Wayans Brothers. Even so, Scary Movie 3 is a limp parody of recent blockbusters ranging from The Matrix to The Others to M. Night Shyamalan's Signs and Eminem's 8 Mile. The modest 2002 horror hit The Ring provides the basis for much of the film’s satire.

Anna Faris returns as the series heroine Cindy Campbell, now working as a reporter ala Naomi Watts' character in The Ring. Cindy stumbles on two big news stories that may be connected, a videotape that promises death and crop circles in a small-town cornfield owned by Tom (Charlie Sheen in a parody of Mel Gibson's fallen priest in Signs). Simon Rex is George, Tom's younger brother and wannabe rapper a la Eminem in8 Mile. George is also Cindy's love interest in the film

None of the plot matters, of course, it's merely a jumping off point for movie parodies that reminded me of Weird Al Yankovic's song parodies. The film takes the plot of Signs or The Ring, recreates the scenes and simply changes the dialogue from melodrama to comedy. It's the same formula that worked so well in the original Scary Movie. However, the original smartly kept its focus on parodying one film at a time, Scary Movie 3 attempts to parody several different films all at once, at times more than one film in the same scene. The lack of focus forces the script to do a lot of explaining and re-explaining of what is being parodied. All of the exposition necessary to give context to the next gag is tiresome to say the least.

The film’s trailer is somewhat misleading. The trailer promises a Matrix parody with Queen Latifah and Eddie Griffin. In reality there is a bit of Matrix parody but Latifah and Griffin have more screen time in the trailer than in the actual film. I won't spoil the surprise of what actor plays the role of the Architect in another Matrix riff but it's one of the film’s few bright spots.

The film’s weak spots are numerous but especially glaring are its weak attempts at racial humor. The scenes that parody 8 Mile are completely off the mark and Simon Rex is especially overmatched attempting to send up Eminem who's verbal virtuosity is ten times funnier than any of the weak satire of Scary Movie 3. 

How do you send-up a character who himself is a brilliant parodist? You have to be able to top him and the Zucker Brothers never come close to any satire that Eminem hasn't already done himself and funnier. The Zucker's clearly lack the Wayans's sharp eye for racial humor. While watching the 8 Mile send-ups, you’re left to wonder how the Wayans Boys would have handled the same material and you know it would be far funnier.

The only thing Scary Movie 3 has going for it is Anna Faris who once again shows an astounding comedic ability to rise above even the most revolting indignities. Her Cindy Campbell has been beaten to heck in each of the three films and still Faris manages to shine. Faris takes on all of the lowest forms of humor with chipper aplomb and winks at the audience the whole way. She is the only element of Scary Movie 3 that works.

The Zucker Brothers with writing partner Jim Abrahams invented the parody genre. With Scary Movie 3 they may have effectively ended it from a creative standpoint. It's clear they have lost their deftness and comic touch in favor of half-assed, inane scatology. From a commercial standpoint unfortunately, the genre will likely have another life, it is clear this film will be a hit despite its innumerable flaws.

Movie Review Radio

Radio (2003)

Directed by Michael Tollin 

Written by Mike Rich 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Ed Harris, Alfre Woodard, Debra Winger, Sarah Drew 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 25th, 2003

Writer-Director-Producer Michael Tollin seems to aspire to mediocrity. A cursory look at his resume shows just that, a string of mediocre films as both a director and a producer. He has a particular affinity for the most mediocre of genres, the sports movie. With his partner, Brian Robbins, Tollin was a part of the predictable football movie Varsity Blues, the lame and predictable baseball movie Hardball and the God-awful Freddie Prinze Jr. movie Summer Catch. The latest addition to the Tollin-Robbins sports pantheon is Radio, a cloying tearjerker that hits all the manipulative notes.

The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as a mentally challenged man named Radio, a nickname given to him by Coach Harold Jones, the coach of the local High School football team. Coach decides to help out Radio after finding some of his players harassing the poor guy. Coach makes Radio a part of the team, allowing him to take part in practices and eventually allowing him into the school and classes.

Radio's involvement with the team and the school is good for him but is met with some resistance by a local booster Frank Clay (Chris Mulkey), who doesn't like Radio because, well, because he's just mean. That is really the only reason the movie gives for his unnecessarily rude behavior toward Radio who everyone else in town loves.

S. Epatha Merkerson turns up in the unforgiving role of Radio's mother whose fate is foretold from her first appearance onscreen. The rest of the supporting cast is less than memorable. Debra Winger is nearly unrecognizable in the role of the coach's wife, and young Sarah Drew in her first live action film role (she did voice work on TV's Daria) is not bad as the coach's oft-forgotten daughter.

Ed Harris is the only real asset of the film. His stature and dignity infuse his role with more credibility than it deserves. As written, the character is rather wishy-washy liberal do-gooder but with Harris in the role, the character has more weight and the melodramatic script is improved with his presence and delivery.

As for Gooding, just add Radio to the growing list of roles that have marked his career's death spiral since his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire. I've written way too much about Gooding's self destruction and it's getting harder and harder to watch. Jerry Maguire continues to be one of my all time favorites and Gooding was a huge part of that. However, the goodwill he earned from his role as Rod Tidwell is completely gone and his presence in any film is becoming unwelcome.

As for Tollin and his producing partner Brian Robbins, Radio shows little improvement over their previous mediocre outings. While it's billed as a true story and there is a real man named Radio who lives for high school football in South Carolina, the movie of his life never once rings true. Rather it is the same market-tested family drama that is better left to Hallmark Hall of fame.

Movie Review In the Cut

In the Cut (2003)

Directed by Jane Campion

Written by Jane Campion, Susanna Moore

Starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kevin Bacon 

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published October 30th, 2003 

Meg Ryan is at a serious career crossroads. She can no longer get by on her kewpie-doll romantic comedy roles (she's been replaced in those roles by Kate Hudson). She is now desperate to redefine herself in a manner that is appropriate to her age (42! Looks not a day over 30) and fading star power. In The Cut is the first attempt to change people's perception and while she delivers a fine performance, the film that surrounds her is an insultingly stupid, cop movie cliché.

In The Cut stars Ryan as Frannie, a creative writing teacher with an affinity for slang terms. She is planning a book about the subject with help from one of her students, a charismatic young black kid named Cornelius (Sharrief Pugh). The kid has an obvious crush on his teacher and there is the slightest bit of sexual tension between them. When the two meet up at a bar to trade new slang terms, Frannie witnesses a man being serviced by a woman in the bathroom. That woman is later found dead behind Frannie's apartment.

The officer investigating the case is Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) who shows an immediate attraction to Frannie despite her frigid treatment of him in their first meeting. As he investigates the murder, which is linked to a series of murders by a serial killer, Malloy flirts terribly with Frannie and she relents to date him even though he persists with questions about the murder while on the date. Malloy is also quite blunt in his intentions about having Frannie in bed, telling her on the first date that he will fuck her in any way she wants.

Like most women, Frannie can't resist this guy who is obviously bad for her, so bad in fact that she begins to suspect him of the murders and still dates him and beds him. Her suspicions go back to the mystery man in the bar bathroom who's face she didn't see but who's odd wrist tattoo she does remember.

The other people in Frannie's life are her slutty sister Pauline (played with unending skill by Jennifer Jason Leigh), who suggests that Frannie go out with the cop if only to have sex with him. There is also Frannie's ex-boyfriend John (played by the uncredited Kevin Bacon), a mentally unbalanced med student who has taken to stalking her since she dumped him.

Each of the men in the film, including Malloy's partner Detective Rodriguez (Nick Damici), become suspects in the serial killings while female characters line up to be victims. Whether that is meant as an overt statement or not we are left to wonder. What is clear is that we have seen this movie before in a number of straight to video and late night HBO movies. Woman falls in love with a man who may be a killer while other characters act just shady enough to be suspect as well. Then the heroine goes out of her way to blindly place herself in danger in service of the idiot plot.

This is one tired old cliché and one that director Jane Campion should be ashamed to reuse. Campion is too skilled a writer and director for such an awfully conventional thriller plot. Based on a novel by Susanna Moore, who also helped in the adaptation, the only innovation Campion brings to this series of thriller clichés is her arty, pretentious, handheld camera style. Campion's camera bounces around in cars, fades in and out of focus and lends a gauzy haze to nearly every scene and it is eye-catching and quite well conceived. However the stylishness is entirely wasted on this idiot plot.

Of course what everyone is wondering about In The Cut is, how does Meg Ryan look naked? She looks terrific. Unfortunately, as Campion builds the sexual tension in every scene she forgets to make the sex in any way important to the plot. The sex scene between Meg and Mark Ruffalo is one of a number of well-acted scenes by these two excellent actors but the dumb, stupid, idiot plot, undermines both.

Anyone remember the Denzel Washington movie The Bone Collector? Remember how they chose that film’s serial killer by pulling a cast member's name out of a hat (I think that is how they did that). In The Cut does exactly the same thing. The film seems to choose its serial killer randomly and completely outside of the plot and established characters. This forces Ryan into one forced scene of stupidity after another before finally ending with a quiet thud.

It's doubtful that so much talent and skill has gone into making such an awful film. In The Cut is well crafted and well acted but the story is so stupid that you hate it even more than if it had been a complete disaster.

Movie Review Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Remake)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Directed by Marcus Nispel 

Written by Scott Kosar 

Starring Jennifer Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Mike Vogel, Eric Balfour, R. Lee Ermey

Release Date October 17th, 2003 

Published October 15th, 2003 

When I heard they were remaking Texas Chainsaw Massacre, my first thought was, why? It's already been remade a number of times under a number of different titles. Take House of 1000 Corpses, clearly a complete rip-off of Chainsaw, save for the actual use of a chainsaw. How about the backwoods hicks of Wrong Turn, clearly modeled after Leatherface and his lunatic family? Its low budget look and guerilla shooting style have influenced nearly every horror film released in its wake.

Of course, the number of bad sequels that have provided variations on the original characters are in themselves merely re-imaginings of the first film. A remake would have to first justify itself with a reason to do it. The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre fails that test, never once providing a reason why it needs to exist.

It's the same setup as the 1974 original, a group of comely teenagers trekking their way through backwoods Texas on their way to who knows where, there is a vague allusion to a concert in this new version. Jessica Biel of TV's 7th Heaven plays the re-imagined role originally played by Marylin Burns, renamed Erin for the remake. Her friends are Kemper (Eric Balfour), Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), Andy (Mike Vogel) and Morgan (Jonathan Tucker). 

The kids nearly rundown a teenage girl along the desolate highway, wandering too nowhere. They pick her up and she begins babbling about someone being dead and grave warnings about the direction they are driving. Before she can explain anything more, she meets an ugly end at her own hands, it's actually the film's most effectively gory visual. It's all downhill from there, however.

With the dead girl in the backseat, the traumatized teens stop off in Travis County to find help. What they find however is a sadistic, twisted sheriff (R. Lee Ermey) and his equally sadistic and twisted family, including the murderous chainsaw wielding Leatherface (Eric Bryarniarski) who eats teenagers for breakfast... and lunch and dinner as well.

It's been a while since I've seen Tobe Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I can recall it being far more effective than Director Marcus Nispel's slight, slick re-imagining. There was a visceral quality to the original that is greatly lacking in this remake. It's a quality that Nispel tries to make up for by beating the audience senseless with a chase sequence that lasts what seems like hours. The stylized music video slickness is completely at odds with the original film.

The higher production values of the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I gather, are supposedly the justification for the remake. As if trying to answer the unasked question of "What might Tobe Hooper have done with a bigger budget for the original?” Who cares what he might have done, what he did with his miniscule budget is part of the film’s appeal? The low production value and Daniel Pearl's minimalist cinematography are part of horror legend. Pearl returns for the remake and does seem to revel in his newfound technical freedom. However, improving on the look of the original isn't anything anyone asked to see.

The young actors give a good account of themselves in their underwritten victim roles, especially Biel who may have found her niche as a scream queen on par with Jaime Lee Curtis. However, she needs to find herself an original franchise to make her mark in the genre. Somewhere there is a new horror franchise ready to change the genre and directors like Marcus Nispel could better spend their time discovering that new franchise rather than applying modern polish to horror classics like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Movie Review Runaway Jury

Runaway Jury (2003) 

Directed by Gary Fleder

Written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Matthew Chapman

Starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Jeremy Piven, Bruce McGill

Release Date October October 17th, 2003 

Published October 16th, 2003

John Grisham novels and the movies made from them are a guilty pleasure for millions. I say guilty pleasure because the work is often merely melodramatic potboilers that adopt legal and political stances that the author bends to his melodramatic will. Indeed, the law in a Grisham novel is often specious and more often than not inaccurate, but necessarily inaccurate to fit the story.

That said, the novels are also tightly plotted and populated by colorful Southern characters and terrific dialogue. It's easy for the non-lawyer crowd to forgive Grisham of his factual indiscretions because his work is just so damn entertaining. The latest of Grisham's work easily transplanted to the screen is Runaway Jury, a look at a trial from the jury's perspective.

John Cusack stars as Nick Easter, a seemingly normal video game store clerk. When Nick is called for jury duty, he reacts like most Americans, utter contempt and annoyance. However, that is merely a cover. Nick has been trying for jury duty and the opportunity to sit in on a huge lawsuit against gun manufacturers. Nick, along with his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz), are rigging the jury in a scam to soak either side to pay them $10 million dollars.

On one side is the noble Southern gentlemen Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), representing the wife of a stockbroker who was killed in an office shooting by a disgruntled employee with an illegally purchased semi-automatic weapon. It is Rohr's contention that gun manufacturers were aware of and rewarding the illegal sales of their guns by company owned gun stores.

On the opposing side, representing the gun manufacturers is Durrwood Cable (Bruce Davison). He however is merely the legal mouthpiece for a shady jury consultant named Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Fitch is the gun manufacturer’s hired gun for rigging a favorable jury by any means necessary. With the help of his team of investigators, Finch compiles blackmail information against potential jurors.

That sets the tables for a number of clever twists and turns, but not so clever that they wink at the audience. Clever in the sense that they play directly to audience expectations. The twists don't surprise the audience, but they aren't insultingly predictable. Screenwriter Brian Koppelman does a great job of adapting Grisham's tight pacing and colorful characters, even as he is forced to change the trial from Grisham's tobacco companies to gun companies. I say forced to change because lawsuits against tobacco companies aren't exactly a fresh topic.

My favorite part of Runaway Jury however is the film’s unquestionably liberal politics. Where so many films shy away from taking a stand on an issue, Runaway Jury is clearly sympathetic to the liberal cause of gun control. The gun manufacturers are the most thinly drawn characters and their smoke-filled private meetings in which all the major gun companies discuss their conspiracy is so blatantly conspiratorial you marvel at the filmmaker’s brazenly malevolent portrayal.

Director Gary Fleder is the perfect director for Grisham. His last directorial outing was the non-Grisham Grisham movie High Crimes. Both films have a mere gloss of real law and are heavy on the melodrama. Both films cleverly cast their films with actors whose audience cache get us past minor plot holes and specious legal wrangling. Fleder has the same talent for pacing as Grisham and while the story is somewhat unwieldy with a number of small supporting characters that get lost occasionally, Runaway Jury is still a very entertaining legal thriller.

Movie Review Kill Bill Volume 1

Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003) 

Directed by Quentin Tarentino 

Written by Quentin Tarentino 

Starring Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A Fox, Michael Madsen

Release Date October 10th, 2003 

Published October 9th, 2003 

It's been six years since Quentin Tarentino last graced the big screen with his considerable directorial presence. In his time away, his existence was pondered in ways only J.D. Salinger could relate too. What was the preeminent auteur of his generation up to all that time? His name was attached to every film that even vaguely resembled his style and, for a time, that seemed his only context. Then finally after a number of delays, Tarentino went into a production that would be the most analyzed, textualized, and criticized film since Kubrick's 2001. How could any film live up to this kind of hype?

Kill Bill stars Uma Thurman as an assassin who survives an attempted assassination by her former friends and employer. The employer is Bill, and her former friends are a group called the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. There is O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) --codename Cottonmouth--Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) --codename: California Mountain Snake--Bud (Michael Madsen) --codename: Sidewinder--and Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) --codename: Copperhead. Our heroine's own codename had been Black Mamba, but we only know her as the bride.

The reason why the bride was targeted by her friends is unclear; what we do know is that she survived a serious beating and a bullet in the head before awakening from a four-year coma. Once awakened from that coma, she is ready to seek her bloody vengeance on the friends and former employer who not only tried to kill her but also murdered her wedding party and her unborn child.

Kill Bill has been called the most violent film in history. I doubt that such hyperbole is justified but the film is very violent. Beheadings, de-limbings, and buckets of blood drop all over the screen as Tarentino choreographs his violence to match the ultra-violent Hong Kong martial arts pictures that inspired him. This is no mere homage; however, Kill Bill is HK cinema raised to an artistic level that the original HK masters could never achieve on their miniscule budgets.

Often, I criticize films for their lack of plot and characterizations, but in the case of Kill Bill all that is missing is forgiven. Kill Bill is one of those films that is not about character and story but rather an exercise in pure style. Where some films are showcases for actors to show off the craft of acting, Kill Bill is the rare occasion where a director showcases his ability to direct. Kill Bill is Quentin Tarentino's film symphony, with actors as his orchestra acting at the wave of his baton.

With help from Hong Kong martial arts master Yuen Wo Ping, Tarentino coordinates one of the bloodiest and most enthralling fight scenes ever. First, though, The Bride travels to Okinawa where she acquires a sword from a master sword maker Hattori Hanzo played by HK legend Sonny Chiba. The sword says Hanzo could slice God. Then it's onto Tokyo and the films centerpiece battle where The Bride battles O-Ren and her henchmen the Crazy 88. In an expertly choreographed and stylishly over the top sequence, The Bride maims and kills the 88 and then claims their severed limbs as a trophy. Then it's on to her revenge against Ishii, another well-choreographed and especially well acted sequence by Thurman and Lucy Lui.

My sister gave me a CD called The Roots of Hip Hop and on it are some of the most sampled songs in history. As fans of hip hop know, a great piece of sampling can become an artwork all its own and much like great hip hop, Quentin Tarentino turns his sampling from HK martial arts movies, spaghetti westerns and Japanese anime (the film’s best chapter, O-Ren Ishii's bloody back story is told in an exquisite piece of anime) into a work of art that can stand alone as a work of art.

Admittedly I would rather see the film in its full three-hour length instead of its current chopped-in-the-middle-release, but, nevertheless, I was satisfied with seeing half now and half in February. If the second half lives up to the promise of the first half, then even the angriest detractor will be satisfied with the latest Tarentino master work.

Movie Review School of Rock

School of Rock (2003) 

Directed by Richard Linklater 

Written by Mike White 

Starring Jack Black, Mike White, Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman

Release Date October 3rd, 2003 

Published October 2nd, 2003

The premise is such a conventional sounding comic setup that it implies disaster. A slacker, wannabe rock star scams his way into teaching at a stuffy private school. However, when you look closer, you see that the story was penned by the brilliant Mike White, the mind behind The Good Girl and Chuck & Buck. It's directed by Richard Linklater who has already directed two masterpieces in this short century, Tape and Waking Life. Finally, the film’s star is that whirling dervish comic invention Jack Black. With this trio of brilliant minds behind it, the conventional comedy setup of School of Rock becomes the single funniest movie of 2003.

Dewey Finn (Black) has the dream of heavy metal guitar God, but not the talent. Thus, why his bandmates decide to oust him after a particularly bad show. Penniless and now jobless, Dewey is about to be kicked out of his apartment by his best friend Ned (Mike White) and Ned's harridan girlfriend Patti (Sarah Silverman). Then the phone rings, it's a private school calling for Ned to sub for an ailing teacher. Needing money to pay the rent Dewey steps in for Ned and begins teaching fifth grade.

Once in the school Dewey is clearly in over his head until he hears the kids in music class. What he discovers is that these are some very talented musicians who with his help could form a rock band to challenge his old band in a battle of the bands contest. So, telling the kids it's a class project, Dewey begins teaching the kids how to rock.

His teachings include rock history and rock appreciation, and homework is listening to Rush, Led Zeppelin and Yes. What's amazing is Black's passion for this music and his ease in communicating this passion to the kids. Using concert footage of classic drummers like Keith Moon and Neill Purtt and guitarists like Hendrix and Jimmy Page to teach the kids how to play. All the while playing out the conventional scenario of helping the kids overcome their problems with self-image and bullies. This inevitably leads to conflict with the school's uptight principal played by Joan Cusack and a Rocky style “overcoming the odds” ending.

However, in the capable hands of White, Linklater and Black this scenario never becomes trite. Black working from a script that White wrote specifically for him, has a passion for the material that comes blasting off the screen in bursts of comic genius. His interaction with the gifted child actors who played their own instruments is truly hysterical. Black carries the young actors over the rough spots that come to all young actors.

The music in the film is non-stop rock from AC/DC, Rush, Yes and a host of classic 70's rock tunes. What's really surprising is how good these kids are, and the songs written for them by Mike White and Jack Black. The songs, which have a vaguely Tenacious D sound are more than credible as is the playing by these gifted kids. The battle of the band's scenes at the end of the film showcases these talented young players playing well off of Black who is not a bad musician himself.

Richard Linklater directs with a perfectly relaxed camera and an eye for allowing his star to carry the day in every scene. Set the camera down and let Jack Black do something amazing. There is far more to it than that however, Linklater's style is present throughout the film but only in the softest of touches. He directs just enough to get exactly what he wants from each scene. This could be the mainstream hit that draws the indie director into the world of the big paycheck.

School Of Rock is clearly a showcase for Jack Black. It's the film that his fans have been waiting for him to make. The one that many people thought Orange County could be before MTV got a hold of it. This film should be enough to hold fans over till the Tenacious D movie is completed.

Movie Review Out of Time

Out of Time (2003) 

Directed by Carl Franklin

Written by David Collard

Starring Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain

Release Date October 3rd, 2003 

Published October 2nd, 2003 

In his last leading role, Denzel Washington won an Oscar exploring his dark side in the cop thriller Training Day. It was Denzel's first time on the wrong side of audience sympathies, and he pulled it off magnificently. If only more roles were as well written as that one. If only his latest role, as yet another cop, had been as well written as Training Day, but it's not. It's not a bad film but as it's written it's a convoluted little thriller that toys with the audience one too many times.

Denzel is Matt Whitlock, Chief of Police in tiny Branyon Key, Florida. A town so small that the chief walks the main thoroughfare checking to see if the doors are locked, and it doesn't take long. Chief Whitlock's personal life is nowhere near as simple as his job. He is separated from his wife Alex (Eva Mendes) and is seeing his ex-high school sweetheart Anne (Sanaa Lathan) behind the back of her husband Chris (Dean Cain). Chris and Matt are also enemies and have been for a number of years. Chris is a former quarterback who was cut from his team and now works as a security guard, something Matt can't help but remind him of.

Even more complicated is the fact that though Matt is sleeping with Anne he still has feelings for his wife and wishes they could stay together. The plot kicks into gear when Matt accompanies Anne to a doctor’s appointment where she is told she has cancer. She unfortunately doesn't have the money to pay for treatment, but Matt might. Recently the Banyon Key police department busted a drug dealer and took into evidence some 450 grand. Matt thinks he can take the money to help Anne and while the case is in appeal, he will have plenty of time to replace it.

From there the film moves into its most exciting moments, Anne and Chris supposedly die in a fire in their home and all evidence points to Matt. Worse, his ex-wife is the investigating officer. So, Matt, with the help of his medical examiner buddy Chae (John Billingsley), must solve the case while preventing Alex and his fellow officers from discovering the evidence that implicates him.

This is a very dense narrative that twists and turns and at many points is quite enjoyable. However, it's also rather conventional in the sense that you have seen this setup more than a few times. It's a rather typical noir that doesn't escape the predictable formula. Denzel Washington in a noir mystery is certainly not bad thing, but Out of Time isn't a good enough movie for Denzel. 

All director Carl Franklin can do with the script written by first time screenwriter David Collard, is make it stylish and Franklin succeeds for a good portion of the film. With help from Cinematographer Theo Van De Sande, Franklin takes great advantage of the warm, tropical, color palette of his small-town Florida locale.

The most appealing element of the film is not surprisingly Denzel Washington. The film nearly succeeds on his credibility alone. Sadly, Washington can't quite make this script work on his own. It's just too convoluted, too reliant on coincidence, chance and “only in the movies” type moments. The final confrontation of the film is really disappointing because it is the same climax that every other film of this genre has. It's as if it's required to happen this way.

Out of Time is not a bad film, it's stylish and well-acted but it jerks you around too much to be a successful piece of entertainment. If you’re forgiving of cliches and don't mind being played with in rather obvious ways, then you might like Out of Time. I almost did.

Movie Review: Under the Tuscan Sun

Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)

Directed by Audrey Wells

Written by Audrey Wells 

Starring Diane Lane, Raoul Bova, Sandra Oh, Lindsay Duncan 

Release Date September 26th, 2003 

Published September 25th, 2003 

It's hard to believe but Diane Lane has been acting since 1979.

Ever since her impressive debut in A Little Romance, Diane Lane was expected to be a star. Then came a series of flops, TV movies and impressive supporting roles. Then came 2002's Unfaithful, a drama about marital infidelity in which Lane fell for the romantic advances of a much younger man played by Olivier Martinez. The sexy, complicated role earned Lane an Oscar nomination and the kind of recognition that was expected of her years ago. Now with her first starring role since Unfaithful in the chick flick fantasy Under the Tuscan Sun, Lane finds true stardom.

Based on a best seller by Frances Mayes, Diane Lane stars as Mayes in this slightly fictionalized take on her personal experiences. Working in San Francisco as a college professor and book critic, Frances is happily married or so she thought. One night when attending a book release party for one of her students Frances is approached by a writer whose book, she panned. The writer tells Frances something about her husband that she doesn't know and soon the marriage is over.

Forced out of her home because of the divorce settlement, Frances temporarily holes up in a tiny furnished apartment with a group of other divorce victims. Luckily for Frances her friend Patti (Sandra Oh) is not about to let her wallow in her tiny apartment and surprises her with a trip to Tuscany. To assure Frances she can take the trip without being hassled by guys, it's a gay tour of Tuscany.

It takes some convincing but finally she accepts and she's off to romantic Tuscany. Once there, she falls irrationally in love with a villa called Bramasole and using all the money she has, she buys it. It's definitely a fixer upper with holes in the walls and floors and faucets with no running water. A quirky group of unusual Polish construction workers help her fix the place and get friendly over Frances's love of cooking for the guys.

Of course, in this romantic setting how can Frances not fall madly in love? On a day trip to Rome, Frances meets one of those men directly from a romance novel. In the best line of the film Frances asks the man his name and he say Marcello. Frances laughs and replies "of course it is.” Marcello is played by Raoul Bova, who does a fine job with an underwritten role.

The film isn't about Marcello, it's about Frances and this strange adventure that has brought her to the last place she ever thought she would be. This is a real terrific role for Diane Lane who needed to lighten up her work after Unfaithful. Nothing wrong with Unfaithful, she was Oscar nominated for the role and deserved it. I'm just saying that her role in Under the Tuscan Sun is a perfect change of pace that should guarantee her the stardom that has been expected of her since Time Magazine put her on the cover in 1980.

While Raoul Bova and Sandra Oh do fine work along with host of quirky supporting characters including Vincent Riotta and Lindsey Duncan, Diane Lane's true co-star in Under the Tuscan Sun is Italy. I have said it before and I will say it again, no country in the world films as well as Italy. The camera absolutely loves every inch of the sun-drenched coasts and cobble stone streets. When populated with characters as colorful as the country, it’s a wonder to watch.

Director Audrey Wells who also adapted the screenplay does a fantastic job in only her second time behind the camera, having also directed 2000's terrific Guinevere. Her story isn't overly complicated, and she does a great job of roping in the numerous subplots before one gets in the way of Frances in the main story. As sweetly absurd as some of these subplots are, it's a great task to keep them under control and Wells pulls off to near perfection.

Watching the commercials and trailers for Under the Tuscan Sun, I was amazed by Diane Lane's transformation from working actress to star. Her Oscar nomination only confirmed her ability, Under the Tuscan Sun shows Lane maturing into stardom in the classic Hollywood sense.