Ripley’s Game (2002) – DVD

April 19, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Italy, Mystery, Thriller, UK

**** Image A Sound A
starring John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, Lena Headey
screenplay by Charles McKeown and Liliana Cavani, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith
directed by Liliana Cavani

Mustownby Walter Chaw When I heard that The Night Porter auteur Liliana Cavani was adapting one of Patricia Highsmith's Mr. Ripley novels, I knew to expect something more in line with René Clément's brilliant Purple Noon than Anthony Minghella's lavishly simpering The Talented Mr. Ripley. What I didn't anticipate was that this film, which never received any sort of domestic theatrical distribution before being summarily dropped, supplement-free, onto the home video market, would be one of the best of its year–indeed, of its kind. Ripley's Game is doomed to the "direct-to-video" label and an ignominious eternity buried in the Blockbuster shelves for the occasional stunned bemusement of the well traveled and the John Malkovich fetishist–it languishes there while over-masticated tripe like The Alamo finds its way to thousands of screens, its lingering impact to remind again that the slippery slope in Hollywood's distribution game just got steeper. Ripley's Game would have looked great on the big screen–and some genius robbed us of the opportunity to see it that way, thinking we'd prefer American Splendor or Along Came Polly.

The Office: The Complete Second Series (2002) – DVD

April 18, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Pseudo-Documentary, Television, UK

Image A Sound A- Extras C+

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Fans of "The Office" are in for a lopsided evening if they plan to do a marathon of both seasons. Much as I loved series one, there's no denying that it deals purely with the inertia of office life, of living with the petty nuisances of an obnoxious boss (Ricky Gervais as David Brent), a "weasel-faced ass" (Mackenzie Crook as Gareth Keenan) at the desk across from you, and a long stretch of boredom as the mindless work you do stretches on into infinity. Creators Gervais and Stephen Merchant could have easily riffed on this for years and run out of ideas along the way, but wanting to go out with a bang ("The Office" is, by all accounts, finished), they decided to play the series out by throwing the office environment into flux. Thus we have "The Office: The Complete Second Series", a brilliant and unlikely cross between Basil Fawlty and Arthur Miller that starts off subtly hilarious and ends as one of the most wrenching tragedies ever to crash through the small screen.

Ned Kelly (1970) – DVD

April 7, 2004Posted in1970s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, UK, Western

*/**** | Image B- Sound C
starring Mick Jagger, Clarissa Kaye-Mason, Mark McManus, Ken Goodlet
screenplay by Tony Richardson and Ian Jones
directed by Tony Richardson

by Walter Chaw Somewhere between the islets of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, just off the coast of Performance and Mad Dog Morgan, floats Tony Richardson's less visited, incomprehensible, woefully miscalculated Ned Kelly. Edited with a cheese grater and scored with bizarre faux-Aussie folk by strange bedfellows Shel Silverstein and Waylon Jennings, all while giving lie to David Mamet-as-director's claims to originality in dispensing with exposition in favour of oblique, impenetrable dialogue and stilted performances, Ned Kelly is also home to one of the worst performances by a rock star in a world that knows Graffiti Bridge and Glitter. Really just the kissing cousin of such of its contemporary counter-cultural misfires as Myra Breckinridge and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the panicked 1970 policy of giving the kids what they want, whatever that might be, is filtered here through the disturbing prism of a 42-year-old Englishman's perspective. (Admittedly, as angry young men go, Mick Jagger is a better choice than Breckinridge's Rex Reed.) Curiously though, as it so often does, the rare convergence of everything gone wrong makes for pretty compulsive viewing.

A Room with a View (1985) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD

April 6, 2004Posted in1980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Romance, UK

***/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B-
starring Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliot, Helena Bonham-Carter, Simon Callow
screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on the novel by E.M. Forster
directed by James Ivory

Roomwithaviewcapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Somebody says to one of the more priggish characters in E.M. Forster's A Room with a View, "You were all right as long as you kept to things, but when it came to people…" It's a line that doubly applies to James Ivory's 1985 film version, which indeed has more to say about the things surrounding its characters than it does the characters themselves. Great care has been taken to tastefully capture the physical details of Italy and England circa 1908, and great care has been taken to provide the actors with the fashions to match. But when the lights come up, we don't really have a strong impression of the characters, who simply populate the period tableaux like mannequins.

Made-Up (2003) + The Reckoning (2004)

March 26, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Theatrical, UK

MADE-UP
**½/****
starring Brooke Adams, Lynne Adams, Eva Amurri, Gary Sinise
screenplay by Lynne Adams
directed by Tony Shalhoub

THE RECKONING
*/****
starring Paul Bettany, Tom Hardy, Willem Dafoe, Gina McKee
screenplay by Mark Mills, based on the novel by Barry Unsworth
directed by Paul McGuigan

Madeupreckoningby Walter Chaw The problem with Tony Shalhoub’s directorial debut Made-Up is a certain forced artificiality in presentation and execution that, though in keeping with the mock-documentary-within-a-mock-documentary format, makes the consideration of it emotionally and aesthetically removed. It’s a slippery criticism to level at a picture that seems to be about emotional and aesthetic remove, of course, but there comes a point when the form imitates the message to an obfuscating degree–in other words, when it’s no longer about the distance, but is the distance. So for all the empty extra-textual readings the film culls for its subtext (Brooke Adams, an actress out of the scene for a decade or so, plays an actress out of the scene for at least a decade; sisters play sisters; the daughter is played by the daughter of Susan Sarandon; and so on), Made-Up is salvaged by a sense of decency, and one meta-read that carries some weight as Shalhoub, an Arab-American of Lebanese descent, directs a film about the ills of stereotyping based on appearance.

The Heart of Me (2003) – DVD

March 23, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Germany, Romance, UK

**½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras C+
starring Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams, Paul Bettany, Eleanor Bron
screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, based on the novel The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There’s nothing especially wrong with The Heart of Me, a professional, handsomely mounted, beautifully shot film featuring good performances from an attractive cast and a script that can at least be described as well-written. Unfortunately, that same screenplay doesn’t go far enough in pondering the ramifications of its narrative events: people fall in and out of love arbitrarily, make decisions because the plot requires it, and do horrible things just to get a rise out of the audience. There’s no real artistic purpose beyond the sound and fury of the story–it’s more designed and photographed than written and directed, with no real thematic exploration going on behind the devastatingly gorgeous goings-on. Thus The Heart of Me is craftsman-like enough to keep you watching, but it leaves you with nothing beyond a bunch of people being melodramatic while surrounded by sumptuous décor.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) – DVD

March 17, 2004Posted in1960s, Adventure, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Family, UK

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes
**½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
starring Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, James Fox, Alberto Sordi
screenplay by Jack Davies & Ken Annakin
directed by Ken Annakin

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover As far as bloated Twilight of Hollywood fluff goes, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes doesn't do too badly for itself. The picture doesn't try to fill you with ersatz wonder at the magnitude of its expensive contraptions, nor does it try to bully you with offensive sentiment in the Sound of Music vein. It's mostly just a lark, and while it's clearly overpriced (as H'wood films of the period generally are), it manages as best as it can to be light and airy. Alas, as often as not the soufflé falls, the victim of obvious caricatures and a grotesquely overblown approach to slapstick. But while Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines doesn't really linger very long in the mind, it's not bad enough to be an affront, and should at least please children young enough to find the sight of a man with an enormous moustache funny.

The Pink Panther Film Collection [6-Disc DVD Collector’s Set – Special Edition] – DVD

March 16, 2004Posted in1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Mystery, Romance, UK

THE PINK PANTHER (1964)
*½/**** Image A+ Sound B+ Extras B
starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine
screenplay by Maurice Richlin and Blake Edwards
directed by Blake Edwards

A SHOT IN THE DARK (1964)
***/**** Image B+ Sound B+
starring Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer, George Sanders, Herbert Lom
screenplay by William Peter Blatty and Blake Edwards, based on the play by Harry Kurnitz
directed by Blake Edwards

THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN (1976)
***½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Lesley-Anne Down, Burt Kwouk
screenplay by Frank Waldman, Blake Edwards
directed by Blake Edwards

REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER (1978)
*½/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk, Dyan Cannon
screenplay by Ron Clark, Frank Waldman, Blake Edwards
directed by Blake Edwards

TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER (1982)
*/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Peter Sellers, David Niven, Herbert Lom, Joanna Lumley
screenplay by Frank Waldman, Tom Waldman, Blake Edwards, Geoffrey Edwards
directed by Blake Edwards

by Bill Chambers If you've never seen the one that started it all, then it will probably surprise you to learn that The Pink Panther is all but a pre-emptive strike against a possible franchise–practically the only thing about it that became canonical and conventional was the animated title sequence. (This upheld tradition of a cartoon beneath the opening credits formalized a cottage industry for James Bond distributor United Artists.) Series lynchpin Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) isn't even the central figure; that would be Sir Charles Litton (David Niven), a playboy plotting to steal the coveted Pink Panther diamond by ingratiating himself with its owner, Dala (Once Upon a Time in the West's Claudia Cardinale), a pampered princess decompressing at a ski chalet in Cortina.

The Commitments (1991) [Collector’s Edition] – DVD

March 15, 2004Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Ireland, Music, UK

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle Kennedy
screenplay by Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais and Roddy Doyle
directed by Alan Parker

by Walter Chaw Alan Parker likes to use his platform as a film director to preach about all manner of society's more obvious ails, reserving the bulk of his ham-fisted proselytizing for the problems he himself identifies as endemic to the United States: hedonism and drug abuse (The Wall, Midnight Express); the price of a culture of fame (The Wall, Fame); the price of Vietnam and our broken social services system (Birdy); the rampant Yankee tragedy of divorce (Shoot the Moon); racism (Mississippi Burning, Come See the Paradise); our love/hate/fear relationship with food (The Road to Wellville); and, most recently (and egregiously), the death penalty (The Life of David Gale). When Parker manages to shut his hole long enough to pack his ponderous, moronic disdain back across the pond, the films he produces there (Angela's Ashes, The Commitments) are weepy prole sagas highlighting the determination of grubby Dickensian urchins toiling in the underbelly of failed capitalism–which, in Parker's mind, is probably America's fault, too. Poor baby. I'm not sure what's made Parker an expert on fixing the United States (something to do with his background as a commercial director, I suspect), but I for one am just so grateful for his insight.

The Girl from Rio (1969) + Sadomania (1981) – DVDs

March 8, 2004Posted in1960s, 1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blue Underground, Crime, Drama, DVD, Spain, Thriller, UK, West Germany, ZERO STARS

Die sieben Männer der Sumuru
*½/**** Image  A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Shirley Eaton, Richard Wyler, George Sanders, Maria Rohm
screenplay by Peter Welbeck
directed by Jess Franco

Sadomania – Hölle der Lust
Hellhole Women
ZERO STARS/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Ajita Wilson, Ursula Fellner, Robert Foster, Gina Jansen
screenplay by Jess Franco and Günter Ebert
directed by Jess Franco

by Walter Chaw Theoretically, I'm not opposed to the idea of the exploitation film. In the right hands, its disreputable ingredients of sex, violence, and "shocking" behaviour (the girl and the gun of Godardian legend) could be a thrilling camera subject and a springboard for lush stylistic excess. But for every Russ Meyer, Dario Argento, or Suzuki Seijun who knows his way around a camera, there are scores of Lucio Fulcis, Ruggero Deodatos, and Jess Francos who have no clue as to how to make a movie that hangs together. The latter of that unholy trio is a case in point: the current DVD release of two of his films is an occasion for seeing how far the exploitation formula can go wrong. Running the gamut from ridiculous (The Girl from Rio) to repellent (Sadomania), they lack any real stylistic brio to enliven their rote excesses and cheap perversions, succeeding only as possible subjects for Mystery Science Theatre 3000-style mockery.

The Republic of Love (2004)

February 13, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Theatrical, UK

***/****
starring Bruce Greenwood, Emilia Fox, Edward Fox, Connor Price
screenplay by Deepa Mehta and Esta Spalding, based on the novel by Carol Shields
directed by Deepa Mehta

Republicofloveby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Not long ago in these pages, I gave Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed a thumbs-up for leading us out of Canadian master-shot hell with a bold use of montage. Little did I know that the master shots would deliver a riposte so soon afterwards, but lo and behold, here is The Republic of Love, a movie that finds a way to use Canada's compositional rhythm of choice to fairly spectacular effect. True, it has some narrative deficiencies, and it builds to a climax that never really arrives, but Deepa Mehta's slick and stately use of cinematography and colour redeems what could have been another leaden exercise in choice-free Canadian aesthetics.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) + Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002)|Once Upon a Time in Mexico – DVD

February 3, 2004Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Germany, Revenge, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A
starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Rubén Blades
written and directed by Robert Rodriguez

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS
*/****
starring Robert Carlyle, Vanessa Feltz, Ricky Tomlinson, Kathy Burke
screenplay by Paul Fraser & Shane Meadows
directed by Shane Meadows

Onceuponatimeby Walter Chaw Ferociously patriotic but lacking in the epic scope suggested by its obvious debt to Sergio Leone's late masterpieces, pastiche-meister Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a magnification of John Woo in a lot of the same ways that Woo was a magnification of Leone–a post-post modern exercise bound together with a compelling sense of style but an alarming dearth of even the basics of sense. At the same time, if Leone understood the raucous humanism at the heart of Kurosawa, and Woo the insolent demystification of genre archetype of Leone, Rodriguez seems mainly to have ported the puerile macho fantasy of Woo while glancing off the deeper well of questions of honour and the mysterious bond between killers of men. I'm beginning to think that Rodriguez is a cheap filmmaker, interested in the mechanics of a piece more than the motivations of them. He can shoot a mean picture, he just can't set it up, pay it off, or explain it–and in replicating the best shoot-outs of Woo and Leone, he demonstrates that he's no Woo and most definitely no Leone.

Emile (2004)

January 30, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Drama, Theatrical, UK

*½/****
starring Ian McKellen, Deborah Kara Unger, Tygh Runyan, Theo Crane
written and directed by Carl Bessai

Emileby Travis Mackenzie Hoover In Survival, Margaret Atwood's seminal 1972 study of Canadian literature, she identifies Canadian writers' use of the family as "the trap you're caught in" and identifies a number of inescapable families that shut tight like a prison. Faced with this preponderance of smothering clans, she notes: "What one misses [from these books] is joy. After a few of these books, you start wanting someone, sometime, to find something worth celebrating." Flash forward 32 years and you will have the same complaint about Emile, a film in which the family is a tangled web from which there is no escape–and those who try to escape are doomed to guilt and destructiveness. Teamed with a somnambulistic pace and a painful, childlike politeness, the film so reeks of disappointment that it can't even find the courage to allow its most wronged character any kind of catharsis.

Touching the Void (2003) + Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)

January 23, 2004Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Romance, Sports, Theatrical, UK

TOUCHING THE VOID
**/****
starring Nicholas Aaron, Richard Hawking, Brendan Mackey, Joe Simpson
based on the book by Joe Simpson
directed by Kevin Macdonald

WIN A DATE WITH TAD HAMILTON!
*½/****
starring Kate Bosworth, Topher Grace, Josh Duhamel, Ginnifer Goodwin
screenplay by Victor Levin
directed by Robert Luketic

Touchingtadby Walter Chaw For those wondering what it would be like if one of those READER'S DIGEST "Drama in Real Life"s were ever made into a film, wonder no longer, for Touching the Void, packaged complete with suspense-shattering survivor testimonials and manageable tidbits of easily-digestible narrative, is a cunning simulacrum of the same. A feature-length dramatic re-creation in the television tabloid style, Touching the Void tells of a harrowing mountaineering cock-up that is, I guess, legendary in mountaineering circles for the same reason that dead NASCAR drivers are legendary in their sport. The problem though isn't with the ultimate banality of this account of one guy who crawls to safety down the bottom half a mountain he's already fallen down the top half of, but that the film of it mixes the victims of their own daredevil genes offering their perspective in front of a black backdrop with re-enactments featuring wheezy actors not entirely up to the task.

Swimming Pool (2003) – DVD

January 15, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Crime, Drama, DVD, France, Mystery, Thriller, UK

**/**** Image B- Sound A- Extras B-
starring Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier, Charles Dance, Marc Fayolle
screenplay by François Ozon and Emmanuele Bernheim
directed by François Ozon

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover On evidence of the four films of his released theatrically in North America, François Ozon has two modes: a hyper-real pastiche on someone else's work ( Water Drops on Burning Rocks, 8 Women) and a more conventionally realistic gloss on his own material (Under the Sand and now Swimming Pool). I must say that I prefer the former to the latter, as there's nothing particularly radical about the director's own ideas (which often veer off into cliché) and his style, unlike in his crazy adaptations, reads nothing into the material that might redeem it from its own limitations. Swimming Pool is a classic example of this, with a listless look barely propping up a standard-issue script fit for those who fancy themselves culturally aware but were born yesterday as far as the art of the cinema is concerned.

The Office: The Complete First Series (2001) – DVD

January 10, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Pseudo-Documentary, Television, UK

Image A- Sound A Extras B+
"Downsize", "Work Experience", "The Quiz", "Training", "New Girl", "Judgement"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

"I've had several e-mails complaining about a suggestion I made in this column that we should give cannabis to anorexics so they get the munchies. This was a satirical joke and was not meant to offend. I do not advocate the use of illegal drugs and I do not find any eating disorders amusing."
-David Brent, writing in the WERNHAM-HOGG NEWS

Johnny English (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

January 3, 2004Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Espionage, France, UK

*/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras C+
starring Rowan Atkinson, Natalie Imbruglia, Ben Miller, John Malkovich
screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and William Davies
directed by Peter Howitt

by Bill Chambers The only thing mustier than James Bond movies are parodies of them, and as if we needed proof, along comes the excruciatingly predictable 007 send-up Johnny English, in which Rowan Atkinson soars to the lows of Leslie Nielsen at his most contemptibly greedy (see: Spy Hard). (I like both comedians, Atkinson and Nielsen, but only when they're leashed to masters Richard Curtis and David Zucker, respectively.) If it's true that Atkinson was recently motivated by the stateside failure of this very film to check himself into an Arizona rehab centre for depressed celebrities (and frankly, don't blame audiences–distributor Universal didn't exactly tax themselves advertising Johnny English to domestic moviegoers), I hope his caretakers remind him in haste that none of Monty Python's features grossed an enviable sum abroad, that the James Bond franchise has already satirized itself into the ground (it's no casual point that Johnny English was co-scripted by the same writing team behind The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day), and that his first problem is trying to please a country that opens rehab centres for depressed celebrities.

Peter Pan (2003)

December 25, 2003Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Family, Fantasy, New Zealand, Romance, Theatrical, UK

***½/****
starring Jason Isaacs, Jeremy Sumpter, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Lynn Redgrave
screenplay by P.J. Hogan and Michael Goldenberg, based on the play by James M. Barrie
directed by P.J. Hogan

by Walter Chaw A perverse lollapalooza of loaded images and disquieting implications, P.J. Hogan’s live-action Peter Pan is this year’s most intriguing Freudian shipwreck, resurrecting the darkness and poetic pessimism of J.M. Barrie’s play–and Peter and Wendy, Barrie’s own novelization–that has been all but forgotten since Disney’s well-regarded 1953 treatment. (While nowhere near as saccharine as something as mendacious as Brother Bear, that animated version is still of a Disney tradition that washes dangerous source material mostly clean of credible malice.) At its heart, consider that the Pan story is about child seduction/abduction in the Yeatsian “Stolen Child” tradition and a colony of “lost boys” that have forgotten their parents and, crucially, been forgotten in turn. The mirror of a parent’s love discarded in this way renders the film’s heart-warming conclusion a touch bitter, with the spectre of the question “But what about their parents?” hanging over it.

Cold Mountain (2003)

December 25, 2003Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Italy, Road Movie, Romance, Romania, Theatrical, UK, War

*½/****
starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Donald Sutherland
screenplay by Anthony Minghella, based on the novel by Charles Frazier
directed by Anthony Minghella

Coldmountainby Walter Chaw Existing in an awards-season netherworld where the ugliest girl is Renée Zellweger (or Jena Malone), dad is Donald Sutherland, and Odysseus is Jude Law, Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain is a tarted-up march to the awards-night podium starring Nicole Kidman, possibly the most over-exposed actor of the last five years. Everything about the film is careful artifice, from its casting to its grandiloquent direction to its half-baked dialogue ("Small moments like a bag of diamonds," indeed), with only Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the magnificent Brendan Gleeson emerging unscathed from the golden wreckage. What Minghella seems best at is recasting edged, emotionally tumultuous novels into sun-kissed temples to the cinematographer's craft, the more dappled sunlight in the eye with which to bedazzle awards-season voters. The strength of Charles Frazier's National Book Award-winning source material lies in its socio-political details of America's Civil War period, but Minghella has focused his picture unerringly on the overrated novel's weaknesses instead: its dialogue, its clumsy Homeric riff (for better country-fried Odyssey, stick to O Brother Where Art Thou?), and its sweeping gothic romance, which finds its characters, at one point, reading the real deal in Wuthering Heights. The result is, like Minghella's previous literary adaptations (The Talented Mr. Ripley and The English Patient), lavish, lugubrious, and off-target.

Teknolust (2003); In July (2000); Taking Sides (2002); Monster (2003)

December 25, 2003Posted in2000s, Adventure, Austria, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Comedy, Crime, Drama, France, Germany, Music, Romance, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller, UK, War

TEKNOLUST
**/****
starring Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Davies, James Urbaniak, Karen Black
written and directed by Lynn Hershman-Leeson

Im Juli.
***/****
starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Christiane Paul, Mehmet Kurtulus, Idil Üner
written and directed by Fatih Akin

TAKING SIDES
**/****
starring Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgård, Moritz Bleibtreu, Birgit Minichmayr
screenplay by Ronald Harwood
directed by István Szabó

MONSTER
**½/****
starring Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Scott Wilson
written and directed by Patty Jenkins

Teknoby Walter Chaw As the year winds down and distributors great and small try to cram their films into rotation for possible awards consideration, the truism that there are just as many mediocre foreign and independent films as mainstream ones proves sage for a quartet of minor releases. Lynn Hershman-Leeson chimes in with Teknolust, another of her riffs on Derek Jarman, this one obsessed with Tilda Swinton and eternity through technology. Fatih Akin’s second film In July (Im Juli.) is essentially a German The Sure Thing with elements of After Hours, obsessed with eternity through an immortal beloved lit by the nimbus of various suns. One-time Oscar-winner István Szabó offers Taking Sides, a morality tale plucked half-formed from the stage, questioning the eternity of art against the requirements of morality. And Patty Jenkins weighs in with Monster, this year’s Boys Don’t Cry; it’s vérité as lower-class urban ugly, with Charlize Theron seeking eternity through a performance that breaks her out of her starlet mold, Halle Berry-style. Only time will tell if any of it keeps.