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The
Devil Wears Prada
This clever, funny big-screen
adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's best-seller takes
some of the snarky bite out of the chick lit book, but
smoothes out the characters' boxy edges to make a more
satisfying movie. There's no doubt The Devil Wears Prada
belongs to Meryl Streep, who turns in an Oscar®-worthy
(seriously!) strut as the monster editor-in-chief of
Runway, an elite fashion magazine full of size-0, impossibly
well-dressed plebes. This makes new second-assistant
Andrea (Anne Hathaway), who's smart but an unacceptable
size 6, stick out like a sore thumb. Streep has a ball
sending her new slave on any whimsical errand, whether
it's finding the seventh (unpublished) Harry Potter
book or knowing what type she means when she wants "skirts."
Though Andrea thumbs her nose at the shallow world of
fashion (she's only doing the job to open doors to a
position at The New Yorker someday), she finds herself
dually disgusted yet seduced by the perks of the fast
life. The film sends a basic message: Make work your
priority, and you'll be rich and powerful... and lonely.
Any other actress would have turned Miranda into a scenery-chewing
Cruella, but Streep's underplayed, brilliant comic timing
make her a fascinating, unapologetic character. Adding
frills to the movie's fun are Stanley Tucci as Streep's
second-in-command, Emily Blunt (My Summer of Love) as
the overworked first assistant, Simon Baker as a sexy
writer, and breathtaking couture designs any reader
of Vogue would salivate over.
~ Ellen A. Kim |
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The
Passion of the Christ
After all the controversy
and rigorous debate has subsided, Mel Gibson's
The Passion of the Christ will remain a force
to be reckoned with. In the final analysis, "Gibson's
Folly" is an act of personal bravery and
commitment on the part of its director, who self-financed
this $25-30 million production to preserve his
artistic goal of creating the Passion of Christ
("Passion" in this context meaning "suffering")
as a quite literal, in-your-face interpretation
of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, scripted
almost directly from the gospels (and spoken in
Aramaic and Latin with a relative minimum of subtitles)
and presented as a relentless, 126-minute ordeal
of torture and crucifixion. For Christians and
non-Christians alike, this film does not "entertain,"
and it's not a film that one can "like"
or "dislike" in any conventional sense.
(It is also emphatically not a film for children
or the weak of heart.) Rather, The Passion is
a cinematic experience that serves an almost singular
purpose: to show the scourging and death of Jesus
Christ in such horrifically graphic detail (with
Gibson's own hand pounding the nails in the cross)
that even non-believers may feel a twinge of sorrow
and culpability in witnessing the final moments
of the Son of God, played by Jim Caviezel in a
performance that's not so much acting as a willful
act of submission, so intense that some will weep
not only for Christ, but for Caviezel's unparalleled
test of endurance.
Leave it to the intelligentsia to debate the film's
alleged anti-Semitic slant; if one judges what
is on the screen (so gloriously served by John
Debney's score and Caleb Deschanel's cinematography),
there is fuel for debate but no obvious malice
aforethought; the Jews under Caiaphas are just
as guilty as the barbaric Romans who carry out
the execution, especially after Gibson excised
(from the subtitles, if not the soundtrack) the
film's most controversial line of dialogue. If
one accepts that Gibson's intentions are sincere,
The Passion can be accepted for what it is: a
grueling, straightforward (some might say unimaginative)
and extremely violent depiction of the Passion,
guaranteed to render devout Christians speechless
while it intensifies their faith. Non-believers
are likely to take a more dispassionate view,
and some may resort to ridicule. But one thing
remains undebatable: with The Passion of the Christ,
Gibson put his money where his mouth is. You can
praise or damn him all you want, but you've got
to admire his chutzpah.
~ Jeff Shannon |
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Mean
Creek
Deliverance goes
to high school in this grim, stripped-down fable
of a prank gone bad. Friends decide to teach a
lesson to a teenage bully by inviting him on a
canoeing trip where they will humiliate him once
and for all. The prank turns seriously sour, and
the kids must deal with the consequences. Writer-director
Jacob Aaron Estes takes a somber look at these
lives, although his low-key approach makes the
central tragedy seem melodramatic when it happens.
The film isn't quite new enough to be truly revelatory,
but Estes neatly avoids a River's Edge
rehash by allowing his characters more than dead-eyed
anomie. The actors hit their notes with precision,
especially Rory Culkin (another of the Culkin
family, with Macaulay and Kieran), Ryan Kelley,
and Scott Mechlowicz. This is the kind of movie
that may be slightly familiar to older audiences,
but could easily be a home-video cult item with
younger viewers.
~ Robert Horton |
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Dogville
The latest galvanizing
and controversial film from Lars von Trier (Dancer
in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, The Kingdom),
Dogville uses ingenious theatricality to tell
the Depression-era story of Grace (Nicole Kidman,
The Others), a beautiful fugitive who stumbles
onto a tiny town in the Rocky Mountains. Spurred
on by Tom (Paul Bettany, Master and Commander),
who fancies himself the town's moral guide, the
citizens of Dogville first resist Grace, then
embrace her, then resent and torment her--little
realizing they will pay a price for their selfish
brutality... Several critics have stridently attacked
Dogville as anti-American, but the movie's dark,
compelling view applies as easily to Rwanda, Bosnia,
the Middle East, or pretty much anywhere in the
world. Also featuring Lauren Bacall, Patricia
Clarkson, Jeremy Davies, Stellan Skarsgârd,
Chloe Sevigny, and many more.
~
Bret Fetzer |
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Murder
In The First
This shocking prison drama
was inspired by a true story. In 1938, Henri Young
(Kevin Bacon), sentenced to Alcatraz for stealing
$5, attempted to escape from prison with three
other prisoners. One of the escapees was captured,
and to curry favor with Warden Glenn (Gary Oldman),
he informed on the others. Young was soon brought
back to custody, and was to be punished by spending
19 days in solitary confinement. Nineteen days
stretched into three years, in which Young was
kept in a pit with no light, no toilet, no furniture,
and nothing to read. Young emerged from solitary
a vengeful madman, and he quickly murdered the
convict who turned him in. Young was put on trial
for the killing, and assigned a first-time public
defender, James Stamphill (Christian Slater).
Stamphill was horrified by Young's tales of the
conditions at Alcatraz, and he used them as the
basis of his defense for his client, believing
that anyone would be driven to madness and murder
if they had been treated the same way as Young.
Murder in the First also features Embeth Davidtz,
William H. Macy, Brad Dourif, and R. Lee Ermey.
~ Mark Deming,
All Movie Guide |
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Amadeus
The satirical sensibilities
of writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman
(One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) were ideally
matched in this Oscar-winning movie adaptation
of Shaffer's hit play about the rivalry between
two composers in the court of Austrian Emperor
Joseph II--official royal composer Antonio Salieri
(F. Murray Abraham), and the younger but superior
prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce). The
conceit is absolutely delicious: Salieri secretly
loathes Mozart's crude and bratty personality,
but is astounded by the beauty of his music. That's
the heart of Salieri's torment--although he's
in a unique position to recognize and cultivate
both Mozart's talent and career, he's also consumed
with envy and insecurity in the face of such genius.
That such magnificent music should come from such
a vulgar little creature strikes Salieri as one
of God's cruelest jokes, and it drives him insane...
The film's eight Oscars include statuettes for
Best Director Forman, Best Actor Abraham (Hulce
was also nominated), Best Screenplay, and Best
Picture.
~ Jim
Emerson |
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The
Experiment
Special
Edition
What
happens when all of your human rights are taken
away? How would you react if you've been handed
complete control over others that have nothing?
At one point, ordinary men were asked to role-play
this scenario and it took only six days for things
to get completely out of control. Based on the
infamous Stanford
Prison Experiment in 1971, where psychologists
tested 20 men in a simulated prison system as
inmates and guards for two weeks, director Olivier
Hirschbiegel and his respected writers have taken
that basis and crafted Das Experiment -- a thought-provoking
thriller that's as engaging as it is entertaining.
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The
Corporation Special
Edition | Widescreen
Based on Joel Bakan’s
book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit
of Profit and Power, the film is a timely, critical
inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers,
brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits
on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the
corporation’s inner workings, curious
history, controversial impacts and possible
futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with
Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and
many others, THE CORPORATION charts the spectacular
rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific
economic goals as it also recounts victories
against this apparently invincible force. |
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Swimming
With Sharks
Special
Edition | Wide/Full
A harsh, cutting, and
wickedly funny look into the darker side of
show business, Swimming with Sharks tells the
story of a naive and eager assistant (Frank
Whaley) and his slide into the cut-throat world
of Hollywood power struggles. Whaley goes to
work for a top movie executive (Kevin Spacey)
who almost immediately begins to wear down his
new assistant's exuberance with his whining,
egomaniacal tantrums and relentless verbal abuse,
even as he promises his young charge a chance
to move up the ladder. Culminating in a violent
and ultimately ironic confrontation between
mentor and protégé, this brutal
1994 black comedy benefits from some razor-sharp
writing and terrific comic turns from both Whaley
(Hoffa) as one whose idealism is irrevocably
shattered, and Spacey (Seven, L.A. Confidential),
deliciously funny as a caustic, belligerent,
and ultimately sad figure. A savage indictment
of both the movie business and the price of
ambition, Swimming with Sharks is one of the
best black comedies in recent years.
~ Robert Lane |
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Falling
Down
Wide/Full
Joel Schumacher's social
commentary features an exceptional performance
from Michael Douglas as D-Fens, a man who unravels
under the weight of the nerve-wracking oppression
of the Establishment. Balancing precariously
on the edge of convention, D-Fens' sense of
the "American way" is increasingly
undermined as one frustration after another
materializes during his mission through the
urban jungle of Los Angeles. In the course of
his plunge into a profound, sociopathic disillusionment,
D-Fens strips away society's constructs to reveal
internally flawed social and economic mechanisms.
The host of caricatures he encounters, from
a stingy Korean store owner to uncompromising
fast-food employees, turf-conscious gangbangers
and a neo-Nazi army-surplus store owner (played
with gleeful ickiness by Frederic Forrest),
are products of a dehumanizing social and economic
system, and are used to symbolize capitalism's
darker side ...
~ Mike DiBella,
All Movie Guide |
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Disclosure
Wide/Full
Michael Crichton's bestselling
novel was both a high-tech thriller and source
of controversy with its hot-button plot about
a man's charge of sexual harassment against
a female colleague and former lover. The movie,
directed by Barry Levinson, turned these issues
into a prurient thriller gussied up in glossy
production values, virtual reality computer
graphics, and steamy sex between Michael Douglas
and Demi Moore. Having cornered the market on
roles for men whose brains are located south
of their waistline, Douglas is well cast as
the computer-industry guy who loses a plush
promotion to the opportunistic Moore, and he's
perfected the expression of paranoid panic.
If you don't think about it too much, this is
one of those films that can draw you into its
manipulative web and really grab your attention.
Disclosure is more entertaining than thought
provoking (because the filmmakers basically
danced around the story's potential controversy),
but there's enough star power and visual glitz
to make this an enjoyable ride.
~ Jeff Shannon |
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Office
Space
Special
Edition | Wide
| Full
Ever spend eight hours
in a "Productivity Bin"? Ever had
worries about layoffs?... Ever had to endure
a smarmy, condescending boss? Then Office Space
should hit pretty close to home for you. Peter
(Ron Livingston) spends the day doing stupefyingly
dull computer work in a cubicle. ... His coworkers
in the cube farm are an annoying lot, his boss
is a snide, patronizing jerk, and his days are
consumed with tedium. ... Layoffs are in the
air at his corporation, and with two coworkers
(both of whom are slated for the chute) he devises
a scheme to skim funds from company accounts.
The scheme soon snowballs, however, throwing
the three into a panic until the unexpected
happens and saves the day. Director Mike Judge
has come up with a spot-on look at work in corporate
America circa 1999.
(excerpts)
~ Jerry Renshaw |
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The
world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.
~ Albert Einstein |
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Long
is the way And hard, that out of hell leads
up to light.
~ John Milton,
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 432.
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