15 Minutes (2001) [Infinifilm] – DVD

August 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Robert De Niro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer, Avery Brooks
written and directed by John Herzfeld

by Walter Chaw There’s a thing that happens about an hour into John Herzfeld’s 15 Minutes that is as bald and shameless a foreshadowing device as any in the tired pantheon of movie-groaners. It’s as bad as telling someone that you’ll marry them just as soon as you get back from this trip to Africa; as bad as showing the guys a picture of your corn-fed sweetie right before you charge that machine gun embankment. It is a moment of stunning conventionality in the middle of a film that is otherwise engaging and, for a moment or two, even shocking and provocative. 15 Minutes is defined by this scene in a great many ways: It’s a Hollywood film struggling with a controversial topic that finds a comfort zone in a script that tries to soften some images by obfuscation and others by a timidity that ultimately undermines its subject. The last time a big-budget picture tried to tackle a media culture involved in exploitation of the darkest crannies of the human heart was Joel Schumacher’s reprehensible and simpering 8MM. Sharing that film’s ignominious demise at the box office, it can be no real surprise that 15 Minutes is almost as repugnantly apple-polishing an experience.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

June 15, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Germany, Japan, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

*½/****
starring Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Leslie Phillips, Mark Collie
screenplay by Simon West and Patrick Massett & John Zinman
directed by Simon West

by Walter Chaw To say that Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is completely incomprehensible is not entirely accurate, for the basic plot appears to be pretty straightforward. The British Lara Croft (played by the American Angelina Jolie) is a sort of jet-setting archaeologist in the Indiana Jones mold who is extremely well outfitted by a gadget man in the James Bond mold, and who boasts of a loyal, shotgun-packing butler in the Batman mold. Her task is to discover two pieces of a triangular artifact before the Illuminati do on the day that a rare syzygy coincides with a solar eclipse, allowing the triangle-bearer to control time.

The House of Mirth (2000) – DVD

May 29, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, France, Germany, Romance, UK

**½/**** Image B- Sound B Extras C
starring Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Eleanor Bron, Terry Kinney
screenplay by Terence Davies, based on the novel by Edith Wharton
directed by Terence Davies

by Walter Chaw Terence Davies's adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, The House of Mirth is ultimately a languid and luxurious failure, though always a lavish and often a compelling one. Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz are vaguely miscast as the Titian leads, while an appearance by Dan Aykroyd in a distracting role as a lascivious cad nearly sinks the production with every moment of his Elwood Blues quick-talking shyster patter, yet Davies's ability to infuse each of his films with a charge of self-confessional mortification lends the piece an air of sad gravity and outrage. The almost unbearable claustrophobic weight of alienation that flavours his non-linear portfolio (Death and Transfiguration, Distant Voices Still Lives, The Long Day Closes) can be traced to Davies himself feeling

Wonder Boys (2000) – DVD

March 25, 2001Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Germany, Japan, UK

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes
screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by Michael Chabon
directed by Curtis Hanson

by Walter Chaw While safely cocooned in the lushly-padded walls of academia, I had as my advisor a Grady Tripp–a man I respected as a professor and as a friend. We exchanged books often, we talked a great deal about the obscure minutiae of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life, and we argued over whether William and Dorothy Wordsworth were engaged in a seedy incestual entanglement. (Yes, Brad, they were.) I even suspect that there was a tattered, coffee-stained manuscript tucked in the top drawer of his desk. If you’ve ever had a professor who shaped your opinions and a good portion of your intellectual life, and if you were additionally lucky enough to call him a friend as well as a mentor, then you’re predisposed to liking Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys.

Rules of Engagement (2000) – DVD

October 19, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Directors: William Friedkin, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller, UK, War

**/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Guy Pearce, Bruce Greenwood
screenplay by Steven Gaghan
directed by William Friedkin

by Bill Chambers In an absurd bit of pop irony, director William Friedkin's biggest smash post-The Exorcist is…The Exorcist. His 1973 horror masterpiece just returned theatres as you've never seen it before–meaning it has been radically altered to fit the George Lucas model of re-release. Starting from scratch today, I doubt Friedkin could have made something half as trenchant as even this tailored-to-the-Nineties version of The Exorcist; for all its unnecessary underscore and pandering CGI, the film retains a purity of emotion he's rarely pursued–or hit upon–since. With Rules of Engagement, which bows on DVD this month, Friedkin seems jazzed by a good cast and implosive subject matter, but at the end of the day I'd be hard-pressed to call it anything but hollow.

Hanging Up (2000) – DVD

June 26, 2000Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Germany

*/**** Image B Sound A- Extras C+
starring Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Walter Matthau
screenplay by Delia Ephron & Nora Ephron, based on the book by Delia
directed by Diane Keaton

by Bill Chambers In Hanging Up, only Eve, the middle child between two sisters, accepts responsibility for their ailing dad, and we wish that he–and his eldest and youngest daughters, for that matter–would die already so that Eve could go off and lead a life actually worth making/watching a movie about. As Eve, Meg Ryan is in typical perky-panic mode. What’s got her whipped into a tizzy this time? Well, a Nixon exhibit that she, a party planner, is hosting (a nod to co-writer Nora Ephron’s first husband, Watergate whistle-blower Carl Bernstein?), the impending death of her dementia-addled father (Walter Matthau, Dick Clark’s opposite in that he has always looked 80 years old), the fallout from a car accident, and the realization that her sisters (Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow) are complete and utter parasites are all converging at once. Eve juggles her responsibilities over the telephone, through convoluted multi-line conversations that give the film its title as well as its raison d’être.

Shaft (2000)

June 18, 2000Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Crime, Germany, Theatrical, Thriller

**½/****
starring Samuel L. Jackson, Vanessa WIlliams, Jeffrey Wright, Christian Bale
screenplay by Richard Price and John Singleton & Shane Salerno
directed by John Singleton

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Shaft is a weird combination of action drama and problem picture that never quite jells as either. Its namesake, a 1971 crime flick featuring a super-stud black private eye, barely resembles this cop-heavy, moralizing film. The updated Shaft wants to score points as both a thriller and a message movie, and only winds up defeating both purposes; nevertheless, the attempt at both is highly suggestive. The combination of the classic Shaft with an ensemble of new characters and villains is irresistible, and the performances patch over the holes in the script to create a film that, if not entirely successful, manages to give us plenty at which to look.

Sleepy Hollow (1999) – DVD

May 22, 2000Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: Tim Burton, DVD, Fantasy, Germany, Horror, Mystery

**/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras C+
starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon
screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker
directed by Tim Burton

by Bill Chambers Googly eyes that spring forth from a ghoulish figure. A burning windmill. Ghostly choir music. Jeffrey Jones. Sleepy Hollow is Tim Burton's Greatest Hits. The trouble with most compilation albums is that they're superficial, a bunch of songs connected by one flimsy context: retrospection. If this latest gloomfest from Burton doesn't make you yearn for the days when you were witnessing his directorial flourishes for the first time, we saw different films. The storytelling is as shallow as the setting is hollow.

Double Jeopardy (1999) [Widescreen] – DVD

March 26, 2000Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras D+
starring Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, Bruce Greenwood, Annabeth Gish
screenplay by David Weisberg & Douglas S. Cook
directed by Bruce Beresford

by Bill Chambers Imprisoned for the murder of her husband, whose apparently dismembered body was never recovered from the deep blue sea, Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd, who’s very good) calls her little boy from a phone bank and hears him say this: “Daddy!” It’s Double Jeopardy‘s most convincing moment, relying as it does on the ignorance of a child–so persuasive, in fact, that you may wonder at film’s end if it had been imported from another screenplay altogether.

The General’s Daughter (1999) [Widescreen Collection] – DVD

December 28, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras B+
starring John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, James Woods
screenplay by Christopher Bertolini and William Goldman, based on the novel by Nelson DeMille
directed by Simon West

by Bill Chambers The General’s Daughter is prettified trash, a sulphur-coloured pulp movie of dubious ambitions. Undeniably effective in fits and starts, this adaptation of Nelson DeMille’s popular novel dies when it succumbs to the lurid urges of a too-visceral director. The nude body of Captain Elisabeth Campbell (Leslie Stefanson) has been discovered strangled to death on an army base in Georgia. Elisabeth’s father, vice-presidential hopeful General Joseph Campbell (!) (James Cromwell), summons beefy army cop Paul Brennan (John Travolta), an acquaintance of the deceased, to close the case before the FBI moves in–and before the media gets wind of the situation. Working with ex-girlfriend Sarah “Sun” Sunhill (Madeleine Stowe), Paul quickly uncovers the secrets of the late captain’s double-life as a dominatrix.