September 18-24, 2003

movie shorts

New Movie Shorts

ANYTHING ELSE

Dear Woody Allen: We need to talk. I’ll always cherish the times we’ve had together (at least some of them), but I’ve been delaying this conversation for far too long. See, like Jason Biggs’ character in your new movie, I have trouble ending relationships, even when it’s clear that there’s nothing left for either one of us to gain. When we first met, you were so fresh and full of life, and that kept us going, even through that whole Bergman period. (Speaking of which, do you still have my copy of Wild Strawberries?) But lately, things don’t seem the same -- you know, like the song you’ve undoubtedly never heard goes. I mean, isn’t Biggs’ character, an aspiring comedy writer and nihilistic novelist, just the same mini-me you’ve been foisting on us for years? And what’s the point of casting actresses as good as Christina Ricci and Stockard Channing if you’re going to reduce them to misogynist caricatures? (Nice work getting Ricci to play a scene in a transparent tank top, though; that should quell those rumors.) It just feels like we’re going around in circles. Maybe people really don’t change. Don’t worry -- I’m not mad at you. Mostly, I feel sorry for you; hell, your last few movies have done so badly that DreamWorks has all but taken your name off the poster, and that can’t feel very good. I want to help, but I think we both need some time apart. I suppose I should be honest -- I’ve started seeing other directors. Maybe you need some time out of a relationship; this compulsive one-film-a-year thing is getting kind of tired. Take a vacation; get out of Manhattan; listen to some music made in the last 70 years. (Diana Krall doesn’t count.) I can’t guarantee that I’ll be here when you get back, but maybe you’ll find someone better. With fond regrets, Sam Adams (Narberth; Ritz 16; Ritz at the Bourse)

COLD CREEK MANOR

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

The crime is not done!

Watch out Quaid and Stone, this house

might kill your careers.

(Cinemagic; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

THE FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS

Having demonstrated conclusively that she’s a whole lotta woman in Goldmember, Beyoncé Knowles here plays a spunky single mother in small town Georgia. Discouraged by the church ladies (specifically, LaTanya Richardson) from taking part in so-called proper society (or church singing), she supports her adorable son by performing in smoky clubs. Here, she’s discovered, singing "Fever," by Cuba Gooding, Jr. (as brassy and annoying as ever), recently returned to town to run the church choir and win a gospel contest. Like any number of city guys in other movies, he sees the contest money as his way back to "civilization" (i.e., NYC), and crassly exploits the talented singers he assembles (these include a falsetto-voiced prisoner played by Montell Jordan, as well as talented locals Lil Zane, Melba Moore and Angie Stone). Its lessons obvious and its structure unimaginative, Jonathan Lynn’s film’s major selling point, aside from the remarkable Beyoncé, is its rousing, mostly complete musical numbers, save for the competition, when the Blind Boys of Alabama and Mary Mary each inexplicably cut off. --C.F. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS

Supposedly inspired by Leone’s spaghetti westerns (other than a few coy tableaux, the parallels are tough to spot), Shane Meadows’ arch domestic comedy is a gunfight at the not-okay corral, with ex-con Robert Carlyle returning to his dowdy hometowns, seeking an opening after his ex-girlfriend (Shirley Henderson) turns down a televised marriage proposal. Granted, I haven’t seen every Leone film, but I don’t remember any of them having quite such a case of the cutes: As Henderson’s hapless would-be fiancé, poor Rhys Ifans is saddled with malapropism upon malapropism; you’d think he was allergic to dignity. Still, it’s hard to miss a chance to watch Henderson, especially when the filmmakers have done such an astonishing job of tracking down the perfect actress to play her daughter (Finn Atkins). Too bad their matching-up skills end there. --S.A. (Ritz 16; Ritz East)

SCARFACE

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Now back in theaters,

because rappers everywhere

must get the quotes right.

(UA Riverview)

SECONDHAND LIONS

As much as children’s movies (or as they’re more often termed now, "family movies") claim their distance from current events, they can hardly help but reflect the circumstances that produce them. The new film from Tim McCanlies (who wrote the screenplay forThe Iron Giant), is set across three distinct time periods: a kind of present, inhabited by a comic strip artist (Josh Lucas); his own past, when he’s played by Haley Joel Osment, dropped off by his negligent mom (Kyra Sedgwick) at the rural Texas home of his two "bachelor uncles" (Robert Duvall and Michael Caine); and the uncles’ past, narrated by Caine for Osment, so as to resemble a glorious adventure, when the brothers were young and vibrant in the French Foreign Legion’s Africa. Each era celebrates the value of fantasy, indeed, says Duvall, a "man" is defined by what he chooses to believe, even if it’s a lie (all men are good, or true love lasts forever). What’s alarming here, aside from Osment’s wooden performance, is that the uncles’ "noble" escapades, which the boy prefers to believe, have them killing swarthy, sword-wielding Arabs (who go so far as to pick their teeth with their weapons), as opposed to an alternative history, in which they are U.S.-based bank robbers who kill "innocent people" (that is, white ones). This fantasy, coupled with the inability to imagine that these two "bachelor uncles" might be anything other than fierce heterosexuals, underline the film’s narrow vision. --C.F. (UA Grant; UA Riverview)

SO CLOSE

When it’s decipherable at all, the story is strictly Hong Kong phooey: Two sister hacker-assassins (Qi Shu and Vicky Zhao) -- with the power to see and manipulate every closed-circuit camera feed in the world -- take out evil corporate mofos and race to stay one mind game ahead of the city’s new supercop (Karen Mok), at least until she gets framed by the mofos and has to change allegiances to clear her good name. Luckily, So Close is directed by the martial arts wizard and longtime Jet Li collaborator Corey Yuen, so story comes in exactly last among reasons why this movie was made, or why you should see it. These three women exist to asskick and car-chase and swordfight and shoot in impossible, beautiful ways. So Close may well be Hong Kong’s response to the Charlie’s Angels films (the assassins even call themselves Computer Angels), but aside from bad guys being fully throttled by lustrously haired women there really isn’t a comparison. The Angels films are essentially pomo self-parodies with stunts; notwithstanding the silly non-fight filler, So Close is a visceral, bloody ballet that (at least until the Kill Bills) gives Hong Kong full bragging rights in the burgeoning genre of shampoo fu. --Ryan Godfrey (Roxy)

TYCOON: A NEW RUSSIAN

Its parallel time-tracks charted by onscreen titles, Pavel Lungin’s histrionic saga would love to be the Godfather of post-Communist Russia, but weighty pronouncements notwithstanding, it’s more like an episode of Moscow Vice. Originally titled Oligarch and featuring a hero named Plato (Vladimir Mashkov), Tycoon makes its epic intentions clear from the start, but it’s all bluster and no sweep. Plato, an intellectual turned businessman turned quasi-gangster, seems more like a punk than a philosopher king; Lungin’s idea of a badass hero is one who gets out from under a naked woman to defend a comrade against charges of anti-Party sedition. (Not exactly a bad mothershutyourmouth.) That Russian capitalism has given rise to violent corruption is hardly news (Plato is explicitly based on Russian robber baron Boris Berezovsky), but more complex observations don’t tempt Lungin’s sensationalist palate. --S.A.(Ritz at the Bourse)

UNDERWORLD

Kate Beckinsale looks fabulous in her shiny black catsuit. She also looks good scowling, crouching, striding, shooting and leaping from the tops of buildings. Framed in shadows and blue light, she plays Selene, a super-styling vampire who drives fast cars and gets her fancy weapons from a charismatic vamp-tech (Robby Gee). Her solemn voiceover introduces Len Wiseman’s British-German-Hungarian-U.S. co-production, which borrows heavily from Blade, among other sources, and concerns a centuries-long battle between two races: the elite Death Dealers (bloodsuckers, led by Shane Brolly) and crude Lycans (werewolves, led by Michael Sheen). While the former spend their time drinking blood in ornate parlors and posing with cigarette holders, the latter entertain themselves with WWE-ish knockdowns, ripping one another up in underground hideaways. Fragmented, erratically paced, action-packed (with much rain, slo-mo violence, throbbing soundtrack and elaborate wolfish transformations), the film stages a race and class conflict over possession of a human (Scott Speedman) with a specific genetic code. As Selene figures out the bizarre morality of this ancient blood feud, she also -- no surprise -- falls for the human. --C.F. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there