Reviews

I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I began to imagine Drew Barrymore playing opposite Adam Sandler instead of Jimmy Fallon. In "50 First Dates," Sandler found something tangible in his character, which made the chemistry believable, even though the situation was not. In "Fever Pitch," Fallon's paper thin performance left the audience as wanting as Barrymore's character found her love interest. Even though Sandler has evolved, that Fallon has not progressed to the level of Adam Sandler hardly puts him very high up the food chain. Barrymore's usual appealing portrayal nearly saved the film, but could not rescue it from cliché and tedium.

Just returned from the Regal, which bravely ventured into indie territory with Tadpole, from director Gary Winick. In many ways, the film was reminiscent of French movies which combine sexuality with ideas, where the ideas undergird the film. Winick seems comfortable with the reality that families, especially blended ones, are often cauldrons of seething sexuality. These passions run like a swift underground river, oblivious to the egos and social conventions that rule the surface. In the hands of lesser actors, the material would have crumbled into camp, but this experienced cast delivers the discourse at the level of tender, light comedy, with a deep respect for the characters and issues involved.

Oscar (Aaron Stanford) is the precocious 15 year old son of a Columbia history professor, Stanley (John Ritter), and has a mad crush on his step-mother Eve (Sigourney Weaver). Disdaining girls his own age as lacking in the worldly graces and wisdom, he focuses instead on Eve, a doctor whose passion for her work and interest in him ignites his passion for love, relationship, and self-discovery. Toting his tirelessly read copy of Voltaire's Candide, he seeks a sensibility in a woman to nurture his hunger for the world that is beginning to open to him.

So, during a brief vacation from his prep school, he charges ahead with a plan to finally connect romantically with his step-mother. After an awkward evening with "the fam," he ventures out to the cool evening air to drop off a girl his father wants him to date, ditches her in a cab ("But I only live six more blocks away," she protests) gets drunk, and runs into Eve's friend Diane (Bebe Neuwirth), a chiropractor who invites him into her apartment and, with one thing leading to another, gives him an adjustment he will never forget. Since she is a friend of the family, Oscar is appalled to learn that Eve has invited her to attend dinner with the family. And then, the hi-jinx begin.

Or they would in a lesser film, but here, the filmmaker treats the situation with wry humor, a keen understanding of adolescence and the feelings that emerge when the rule book no longer applies because those chapters have never found print. During the rest of the film, with a surprisingly light touch, it proceeds to describe how the characters resolve these eruptions of passion, and find a way to channel them in a way that is consistent with the developmental course of the family. While the film is slight in some respects, it works well when taken on its own terms. The writing is sharp and closely observed, and the characters are realistically drawn. To the filmmakers' credit, he lets us grapple with the issues he raises without creating scapegoats. This film savors the ambiguity of the characters who inhabit its plot, which allows us to relate to them in a way that permits us to grapple with ourselves. And, of course, the movie suggests another compelling social issue......how would we feel if the protagonist were a 15-year- old girl?

I should also add that Tadpole resonates with the look and feel of the coming-of-age films from a generation earlier, with Oscar's character somewhat reminiscent of Benjamin Braddock of The Graduate. Winick also uses a cover of a Simon and Garfunkel song, along with the David Bowie rock classic Changes. By using this "retro-score," Winick succeeds in not only referencing a film vocabulary, but also unearthing the feel of an era, where life pushed the edge of the envelope, anyone under the age of 30 who was not a revolutionist was considered an inferior (Shaw), and life effused with possibilities.

The only fault I found with the film was its digital cinematography, which looked washed out with ill-defined images, a problem that would not have occurred disappeared with the use of film stock. Nevertheless, I'm happy to give this film ***1/2 of fours stars.

I had the pleasure seeing this film at last year's Virginia Film Festival under the then working title, "Goodbye, Hello," which was still awaiting its final cut. Brad Silberling was interviewed following the screening.

Gyllenhaal's character (Joe) takes up residence in the home of his fiancee's parents Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and JoJo (Susan Sarandon) following his intended's tragic accidental death just a few days before their impending nuptials. What follows is a realistic series of events which tracks how individually and together each deals with their grief, as well as the grim business of getting on with their lives. This film is visually interesting, with fantasy/dream sequences which symbolize Joe's struggle to find some authenticity underneath his numbness and latent feelings of guilt.

This has been an interesting year in film for families dealing with the death of a child, preceded by "The Son's Room," "The Deep End," and "In the Bedroom," and fits well in this cinematic company. None of the characters fall victim to type: JoJo carries the emotional and practical center of the family, while Ben attempts to work out his feelings by effectively adopting Joe as a would-be son, while attempting to logic his way through his grief similarly to the way Nanni Morreti's character in "The Son's Room" attempts to reconcile his.

Meanwhile, Joe, in a tone of low key desperation, tries to meet her parents' needs, oblivious of his own. His flatness and disorientation are reminicent of another character named Ben, but only that time it was Dustin Hoffman's in the role of Ben in "The Graduate."

From the Virginia Film Festival audience during the Q & A , I asked Brad Silberling if Hoffman was aware of this irony. Silberling indicated that he thought that Hoffman had glimpses of this, and was becoming gradually aware of the strange parallelisms between both characters and actors at early states of their careers. For example, when Hoffman was reviewing the script, he was enthusiastic - he has tended to want to play all the parts in a good film - but was heard to exclaim that he would "do anything" to play the part of Joe, even though he was totally unaware that he had already played that part in 1967!

Holly Hunter also puts in a good turn as the lawyer, but watch for the newcomer, Ellen Pompeo (Bertie), who plays Joe's love interest. She has a sweet, down-to-earth sensual quality which helps emotionally ground Joe and the film generally. She's a real find, leaving me looking forward to her next film.

This is a moving piece of work, and unlike the overtly manipulative quality of Siberling's "City of Angels," finds a solid balance between sentiment and gritty reality.

This is one of the year's best films.

I was rooting for this film. Cameron Crowe has made some of the best American commercial films in the last two decades, an oeuvre that includes: Fast times at Ridgemont High; Say Anything (arguably one of the best teen films ever made); Jerry Maguire; and the celebratory Almost Famous. As always, Crowe was working with some of the best talents in the industry, including cinematographer John Toll (The Thin Red Line; Almost Famous) and a cast that included Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell (who hardly resembles Elvis here), Timothy Spall, Jason Lee, and a small part by the always remarkable Tilda Swinton.

So, what the hell went wrong?

In the film, Tom Cruise plays a CEO of a large corporation who is involved on a "friend/lover" basis with Cameron Diaz. When he wakes up at the beginning of the movie, he hears Penelope Cruz's character telling him to wake up. He does, and drives to Manhattan, which is totally devoid of people. Then, he wakes up again....it was a dream.....only to hear Cameron Diaz's voice waking him. Later, he meets Penelope Cruz's character at a party, accompanied by Jason Lee's character, who is Cruise's best friend. The chemistry between Cruise and Cruz is immediate.

At this point, VS takes off into a variety of directions involving various time shifts, including a car accident with the now stalking Diaz character which leaves her dead and Cruise horribly facially disfigured. In an overlapping thread, he is charged with a murder, although the discourse doesn't let on exactly who he was alleged to have killed. The leit motif of the movie is to "wake up," as Cruise desperately tries to get clear about what is happening to him, what has happened to him, and where the tsunami of circumstances is taking him. Eventually, he begins to question the very nature of his reality as he experiences his interpersonal, internal, and physical life collapsing at every turn.

Vanilla Sky is the latest addition to the '01 dreamscape genre following the absorbing noir Memento (not a dream, but plays like one), and two brilliant entries: David Lynch's hypnotic and enigmatic Mulholland Drive; and the compelling Richard Linklater film, Waking Life. These last three films are some of the finest movies of the year (all on my best 10 list), and a cross comparison with VS reveals a great deal.

Two of these better cinematic entries possess a cohesive center. Even though Memento is a precise exercise in non-linearity, the film presents a strong central character with a connecting plot thread: he has lost his short term memory, and is trying to go back in time to solve a murder. Waking Life takes its protagonist on a clear line of interactions with remarkable people. The film-maker's reality comes to us at the same time as the protagonist's, which gives us the sense that we are journeying together with the dreamer. Mulholland Drive appears to make no sense and would seem to suffer from the same problems as VS, but Lynch's cinematography is so mesmerizing, the acting so compelling, the writing so damn brilliant, the scenes so unforgettable, and so incomprehensively real and surreal, that it works anyway.....arguably, it might be the best film of the year.

But VS possesses a plot structure that keeps jerking the audience around; the discourse becomes increasingly incomprehensible which leaves the audience with a strained ability to relate to the characters and keep up with the capricious plot changes to the point where the audience becomes exhausted past the point of caring. And the payoff, when it comes, seems weak and tacked on. Ultimately, the ending rearranges the film's tone and meaning which reduces it from an overly confused non-linearity to a trivial mess with a "feel good" message that seems even more pretentious and contrived than Spielberg's false endings in "A.I."

I'm reminded of a story involving James Stewart when he was originally offered to play Scotty in Hitchcock's Vertigo. Initially, Stewart turned down the first draft of the script because he felt that the film had nothing to ground it in reality. But, when Samuel Taylor rewrote the script and included Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), Stewart was said to exclaim, "Now we have a picture!" because he correctly realized that now the film had a center that would give the audience a hook....someone with whom they could relate as the action became increasingly surreal and strange. That, I believe, is the central problem with VS, which offers the viewer no center, and therefore no hope of maintaining verisimilitude. Any connection the audience might hope to establish with the movie vanishes long before the film-makers flash the final credits.

**1/2 stars for me (despite the problems) for the good performances, the look of the film, Crowe's good intentions (a noble failure), and the fact that any film is automatically improved that involves Tilda Swinton.

The Coen brothers new release, The Man Who Wasn't There, contains some of the most imaginative black and white images I've seen in awhile. Even though the plot and performances were quite effective, I was really less captivated by the discourse of the film than its look. TMWWT was originally shot in color, and then released in black in white with the texture of a color film with the color turned all the way down. The result is a washed out effect, which becomes a visual metaphor for the emptiness of the characters, particularly the protagonist Ed Crane, played with subtle and slight expression (almost excruciating understatement) by Billy Bob Thornton in an Oscar worthy performance. The noirish use of light and shadow reminded me of von Sterberg's "Morroco," (a descendent of German Expressionism) as well as the noir films of the '40s and '50s. The visual style was not only a great homage to the genre, but also unified the film material. Roger Deakins has shot a number of films for the Coens, and this certainly is first rate. Carter Burwell's score, as always, helps support the mood, and blends well with the film's look.

While in many ways typical of the genre, the film itself atypically works at a very deliberate pace. Of course, the Coen's typically walk a shifting line between tragedy and satire (ref. "Barton Fink"), where here the languorous pacing turns the tale toward the surreal both in tone and, in at least one occasion, content. Ed Crane (Thornton) is the second barber working in his brother-in-law's (Michael Badalucco) shop. Ed is married to Doris (Frances McDormand), whom he discovers through attention to the interactional patterns with her boss (James Gandolfini) during a dinner party at their home is having an affair. Soon afterwards at the shop, he serves a customer (Jon Polito) who presents him with a business opportunity requiring 10k to join as a silent partner. The combination of this venture and his wife's infidelity sets in motion the expected double crosses, twists, betrayals which works not only at the level of plot but also at a psychological and relational level.

In a sense, Crane is the embodiment of Elliot's "Hollow Man," "gesture without motion....headpiece filled with straw, alas." There is one telling scene where Ed is peering into the bathroom where his wife is bathing. The background is in focus, while Ed is smoking (always smoking), standing in full silhouette in the foreground standing outside and leaning on the doorway. He comes into the room, and at her command, picks up a razor and shaves her legs, mechanically dipping it into the water, and removes the lather he had just placed from her legs. Here, he seems without person, without substance; a robotic drone with no soul. This scene is repeated metaphorically during a key moment towards the end of the film, which both unifies the work, while demonstrating the eviscerating effect of events on the life of this deeply empty man.

The Coen brothers have created one of the most vivid depictions of anomie in several years. TMWWT makes my list of one of the year's best. ***1/2 from me.

Ghost World, the current Terry Zwigoff (director of Crumb) release starring Thora Birch (American Beauty), Steve Buscemi (Fargo and Trees Lounge) and Scarlett Johansson (The Horse Whisperer, The Man Who Wasn't There, An American Rhapsody) works as a solid, creative effort standing in bas relief to the year's worst drech that Hollywood has inflicted on the movie-going public in my memory.

Instead, we have a closely observed poignant satire that introduces a steady progression of grotesques while treating its protagonists with affection and respect. Both Thora Birch's and Steve Buscemi's characters are alienated and isolated; Birch's Enid searches restlessly for a sense of connection, while Buscemi's Seymour has virtually abandoned the attempt. In the course of the film, each tries to reach the other in mutually clumsy attempts at navigating the treacherous currents toward honest and intimate relating.

Much contributes to Enid's anomie. A loss of mother (unexplained), a detached and frightened father, graduation from high school, and a fear of additional abandonment and betrayal causes this pre-coming of age teen to wield a chrome plated shield to protect a fragile heart. So, Enid dresses up in stylized straight black hair and kitch glasses, much as the world around her clothes itself in unsubstantial style and protective pretense in absence of a reality to feed on.

Instead, she finds school mate and friend Rebecca, comrade in arms, as they symbiotically life-raft their way life through waters polluted with the daily dumping of absurdity. I'm reminded of the Coleridge line, "Poetry that excites us to artificial feelings makes us callous to real ones." Enid's central question concerns whether poetry in her world might even exist. Still, they graduate from high school, and make plans....they will get an apartment together, each will find work, and they will find a way to make their lives work. But how to do that without becoming the absurdity that they have hitherto resisted confronts them with the power of the unspoken question.

Meanwhile, through a cruel ruse, they meet Seymour, a man in his 40s, who has an equally symbiotic relationship not with another person, but with his records and memorabilia. Eventually, Enid and Seymour begin to explore relationship choices that offer the promise to move from socially appropriate artificiality to a beyond-the-box mutual grappling with the fears of actually getting close. Despite the seemingly dour and ironic tone, the film grasps an underlying romantic sensibility, and never lets go.

And the visual style is evocative and inventive. It's fascinating the way Zwigoff and the cinematographer are able to visually capture the sense of distance and alienation that the characters are experiencing. Most interestingly, none of the two shots are really two shots. For example, toward the beginning, there is a scene where father and Enid eat breakfast: each face the other on opposite sides of the shot, but the tv occupies the center, and displays the most activity in the scene. A bit later, Rebecca and Enid are eating on opposite sides of a restaurant table, and the jukebox sits in the center of the shot, emitting music. This shot construction becomes the pattern for the entire film, until a key scene toward the end involving Seymour and Enid, which changes the visual tone for the rest of the film. The ending itself, involving a minor character, serves as an elegant (almost.....dare I say....sentimental) coda to a most unusual and rewarding film.

*** 1/2 from me.

Now showing at the Naro theater in Norfolk.

I can certainly give Baz Luhrmann credit for defying, or perhaps more accurately, reinventing convention in his stylistically bold approach to this partial revival of the MGM Technicolor musical cum 2 hour rock video, unfortunately monikered Moulin Rouge. Certainly, there is a lot energy and vitality in this production, and much like his previous work, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, seems to address the teen audience (although this one seems particularly targeted to adolescent females roughly between the ages of 14 - 17). The film, starring Nicole Kidman and Ewen MacGregor with good supporting work by Jim Broadbent, John Leguizamo, and Richard Roxburgh, chronicles the happenings of a gorgeous courtesan named Satine (Kidman) whom we discover early in the film has contracted consumption. She falls in love with a struggling young writer who becomes involved with the production after a piece of broad comedy that both misses its artistic mark and him as one of the members of the upcoming "Spectacular Spectacular" cast literally falls through the ceiling into his apartment. Naturally, the writer is a hopeless romantic, the courtesan is incapable of love until she meets the writer, there's an evil capitalistic Duke (Roxburgh), with whom Satine must liaison to keep the show from closing, while the kind, fatherly director (Broadbent) tries to bring some wisdom and common sense to all, etc., etc.,etc. Meanwhile there are over-long production numbers that quote old show tunes ("The Sound of Music") as well as more current material (Elton John and Madonna) in a mix that possesses a certain amount of quirky charm but never really jells into anything of substance. This is a film about effect, with art direction that struggles hard to overwhelm the audience ever harder at every turn. Roger Ebert gave this film a positive review, which I am not, but he did make the point that watching this film is like being stuck on an elevator with a circus......I think he had a point. Certainly, the editing flies so fast and furiously at some points that I was tempted to stop an usher for an airplane bag. This was an effort that cried out for relief from a lower pitch to allow the characters the chance to breathe and be, as well establish some sense of reality. Instead, we are forced to deal with types stuck in a high-tech largely formulaic melodrama that is so stuck in its formula that it really makes no attempt to connect with the audience on a more authentic level. As a result, there really is no glue to hold this enterprise together, and what we get is two hours of artifice without soul. I must confess that I was bothered by the title, since the original film of the same name was a great film with such wonderful style and performances. I wanted a warning label like: "Be advised to lower your expectations from the original film -otherwise, your subsequent disappointment might be harmful to your health." I might have hoped for some ironic quirks to relieve the film from its self seriousness, like having John Cusak revive his role from Bullets Over Broadway to play the struggling young writer, or Terry Gilliam to introduce a cartoon sequence. Well, I kid, but don't kid yourself that this movie is anything like worth 2 hours of your time. ** from me on this one.

Shadow of the Vampire, the brilliant new horror/comedy/suspense offering from E. Elias Merhige asks the compelling question of how far any of us are willing to push the limits of a personal Mephistophelean bargain in order to achieve some ill-begotten immortality.

In 1922, the great German expressionist film-maker, F.W. Murneau (played by John Malkovich), directed a film derived from Bram Stoker's Dracula called "Nosferatu," possibly the greatest vampire movie in the history of the medium. Unfortunately, Stoker's widow would not give him the rights, so Murneau went ahead with the project anyway, "camouflaging" his work by changing the names of the characters (e.g. Dracula became "Count Orlock"). This feast of imagination was not unlike Clark Kent wearing glasses so no one could divine his real identity. Needless to say, Stoker's widow followed Murneau through the courts into the next several incarnations.

To play the part of the vampire, he hired an unknown actor named "Max Shreck" (shreck is German for "fright"). Shreck (portrayed by Willem Dafoe) was unarguably the ugliest and creepiest Dracula ever portrayed on the silver screen. His presence was so forbidding, that a rumour actually circulated at the time that Shreck, was in fact, a vampire.

Picking up on this conceit, Merhige put forth the following conundrum: was the unknown that Murneau had hired a Stanislavsky trained actor (who always stayed in character throughout the shoot) portraying a vampire, or was he a vampire portraying an actor portraying a vampire? While the audience begins to work out this dilemma, Shreck/Orlock starts to leave a trail of blood.

In the meantime, the plot reveals that Murneau has worked out his own deal with Shreck, which involves some unthinkable reward for his quite unique take on the role. And as the characters assume their characters, Murneau begins to assuage the fears of the cast in their work with this unsavoury character actor. Particularly, he promises Greta, the female lead (Catherine McCormack, who starred in the under-appreciated "Dangerous Beauty"), that her work in this role will guarantee her immortality.

Unlike most horror offerings, this thoughtful work challenges us with considering to what degree a film maker's (and by extension, our own) obsessions become vampiric relative to the sacrifices that they demand of others. The legends are rampant: Hitchcock commenting that actors should be treated like cattle; Carl Theodore Dreyer (Rene Falconetti in "The Passion of Joan of Arc") and Lars Van Triers (Bjork in "Dancer in the Dark") pushing their female leads to the point where they decided never again to endure the torture of making another picture.

The camera promises a level of immortality unique in our time: the enshrinement of voice and image on film. But to what degree might anyone be tempted to sacrifice everything for eternal life in any walk of life? What price Hollywood? What human cost might a general assume for the taking of the next blood soaked piece of real estate? How many business bodies to trample in the quest for the first billion? Or even, what price family in quest of financial security?

From that perspective, one could argue that "Shadow.." is a rather graphic and colorful depiction of idol worship, and how within the context of some higher aim we can commit incalculable harm. In addition to the brilliant performances (I would consider it a grave injustice of Dafoe does not receive the Best Supporting Actor Award from the Academy), this film dares us to form a relationship both with Murneau and his horror. And as a dazzling display of horror, suspense, and dark comedy, this film works extraordinarily well.

****, and clearly one of the best films of the year.

Dancer in the Dark, the new Lars von Trier Palm D'or winner from this year's Cannes Film Festival, is clearly one of the year's best films, and current sits number #1 on my personal list.

It's a given that the plot is totally implausible. But as metaphor, it reaches well beyond the mechanics of its Dogma95 conceits into something transcendent and luminescent though the gifted portrayal of the Icelandic pop singer Bjork and a solid supporting cast. The film certainly follows in the footsteps of its immediate predecessor, Breaking the Waves, (with Emily Watson's memorable work), but instead seems to reach back in time to the very beginnings of the cinema. If there's a clear referrnt, it would be Rene Falconetti's harrowing performance in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Interestingly, both Falconetti and Bjork resolved never again to do another film, and given the enervating intensity of both performances, it is not hard to fathom the reason. And too, both characters participate in a type of tragic heroism that stands them in bold relief against the coarseness and indifference of times that could not sustain them.

Selma works in a factory in Washington State (actually filmed in Sweden), where she finds a variety of ruses to hide her growing loss of sight. Her friend Cathy (played by none other than Catherine Deneuve) supports Selma in both work and music. Jeff (Peter Stormare, from the wood chips of Fargo), loves Selma from a distance, but cannot completely connect because Selma announces that she doesn't want a boyfriend.

In addition to her mission of saving her meager earnings to save her son, who is losing his vision from the same hereditary affliction, she is also attempting to fulfil another dream, which is to star as Maria Van Trapp in a local production of The Sound of Music. When stressed, Selma reveries to Busby Berkeley and like musicals, as the film stops just like those old films to have the entire cast burst into a production number (complete at one point with a wonderful tap-on from Joel Grey). Selma hears rhythm in the clickity-clack of the machines, ecstasy in the noise, and plunges inward into the warming embrace of song, dance, and music.

And how does this musical device work so effectively? Bjork's portrayal of Selma's mythic loss of self in song and dance is emblematic of humanity's grasping some form of spiritual meaning to survive, whether through religion, work, family, or some intangible reality that lifts them from existential despair and hopelessness. For Selma, these vehicles of redemption involve: 1) an unceasing belief in the goodness of people and the loyalty of her friends; 2) the love for her son and; 3) and the power of the musical to heal. As the plot unfolds, as her would-be friend betrays her first belief, she still maintains her bond with her son as the music continues to guide and sustain her. If we understand this relationship with The Sound of Music as one of faith and a basis for a transcendent meaning that undergirds her spirit during her Hellish descent, then Selma ceases to seem so alien, and becomes a powerful source of identification for the audience.

At the same time, I found myself appreciating at a more profound level how important the 30s musicals were for its audience, at a time when fortunes vanished, people starved, and 25% unemployment decimated the fabric of American life. And one of the places where Americans could forget their fear and their suffering was by fading into the Hollywood reverie of Busby Berkeley, Dick Powell, Fred Astaire, and Ruby Keeler (shown in the film) "doing a tap by ear."

And Bjork portrays this woman with a wrenching guilelessness that had me believing, as she held tight to her own dream visions. In watching this brilliant work, I was reminded of an old tee shirt that I had bought in Vermont many years ago. I still have it. It is riveted with holes, is largely unwearable, but one can still make out the black outlines of the renaissance figures of young lovers gently depicted against the bright red color (now faded) of the shirt, with the caption reading, "Dreams are merely pictures of a more endurable reality."

And Selma provides that enduring dream with such power that we can't help but be moved with a power that shatters the current cinema's penchant for irony. This one aims for the seats, and succeeds.

It's warming to know that there are certain constants in the universe, that over time that there are still certain directors that can make me smile just through the knowledge that one of their movies is in current release. One of these, assuredly, is Robert Altman, whose new film, Dr. T. and the Women (***1/2) is a small gem. Here, Richard Gere's trademark laid back performance (sometimes undisguised as downright wooden in other outings) sounds just the right note as a traditional chauvinist (albeit with the best of intentions) in New Age style and manner.

Dr. T. is a OB/GYN in Dallas serving an upper class clientele - a handsome and beloved charmer who manages to tend his patients with a combination of affection and meticulousness that makes the chaotic ship of his practice bounce through foam to safe shores - and clearly, these women adore him as well. Yet, he manages to be masculine without seductiveness: this is no rake with a stethoscope. He genuinely cares for his patients, and he manages consistently to give his tireless dedication to even their smallest needs.

Dr. T. also has a beautiful and charming wife (Farrah Fawcett) and two daughters (Kate Hudson and Tara Reid). And in the midst of one daughter marrying, his wife going mad and finally becoming institutionalized from being loved too much and too well (according to the psychiatrist, played by Lee Grant), leaving her with no goals or direction (and I would add, no sense of self), and with his sense of purpose as a man challenged by a woman (Helen Hunt) to whom he is becoming increasingly romantically attached, Dr. T. begins to see the ground of his world almost literally sink beneath his feet.

Some have accused this film of misogyny: I think those that do mistake content for process. The doctor's chauvinism is sincere: he truly believes that his role as a man is to provide "the women" a gilded environment furnished with all manners of release from cares: materially, emotionally, and without a need to be challenged spiritually. What occurs in this film is an elegant metaphorical demonstration of Dr. T.'s re-birth and transformation, where the good doctor discovers a masculinity independent of needing to emotionally enslave the women around him (family and patients)by enabling dependence. With Hell-paved best intentions, Dr. T. had come to over-nurture these women to the extremity of decadence, psychological regression, and in one life-shattering instance, insanity.

This film also offers an interesting parable about the limitations of materialism. As lives fall apart or take unexpected turns, characters are presented with genuine existential dilemmas. While this film is not heavily plotted, Dr. T. takes a journey, until by film's end we begin to experience a person emerging from the chains of mellow that had previously bound his life. Learning to relate to a self that has no need of a woman to need him, Dr. T. begins to identify who he is as both a soul and a man. And Altman displays this journey with customary wit, style, empathy, and compassion.

Earlier today, I saw The Big Kahuna, which is the finest film I have seen so far in 2000.

A number of years ago, I decided that one of the ways to differentiate adults from youths was that adults had regrets, but still managed to take ownership of their lives, warts and all, and move on. I found these sentiments echoed in a powerful speech Danny DeVito's character Phil gives to Peter Facinelli's character, Bob, towards the end of this filmed play. Here, Phil delivers a wise but not wizened discourse on a level of truth that Bob in his Christian evangelical zeal (he happens to be a Christian, but he could have been from any tradition) cannot yet see, which is that Bob has regrets, but has not arrived at a point where he can acknowledge them.

This is a bold and brave film, set in a hospitality suite (the name, in fact, of the original play of Roger Rueff's that he adapted for the screen) with three salesmen: Phil, a middle aged man with too many years on the road, trying to recover from the shreds of a mid-life crisis; Bob, a Christian evangelical, a misplaced tech at the very beginning of his career; and Larry, a wired, overly driven man who seems in part like a refugee from the sales company from Glengary/Glenross played with a potent combination of irony and passion by Kevin Spacey.

Roger Ebert makes the cogent observation that Phil and Larry on the one hand, and Bob on the other, are both sales reps from their respective religions: for the first two, it's sales; for Bob, its his religion. I agree, but I think its possible to take it one level deeper, which is that all are trying to find God, a sense of connectedness, and an overall sense of existential meaning and purpose. I don't think it's accidental that many biblical references are made by all concerned during the course of the film; in fact, at one point I had a fantasy that if you deleted the profanity, this production could easily have emanated from the talented hands of an educational wing of a major religious denomination.

The "Big Kahuna" is a potential buyer who could land the protagonists on "easy street." Yet, what emerges is a metaphor of ultimacy: what constitutes the "Big Kahuna," i.e. that which constitutes the central purpose of their lives, gives meaning, and propels them toward the natural destination of their dreams and aspirations, (as well as how they orient themselves to these concerns), is really the focus of this film.

Themes of love and faith are collaboratively explored here: commitment to job at the expense of Phil's marriage; the possibility that Larry and Phil could genuinely care about one another as both colleagues and friends after a multi-decade association in a way that transcends both business and practical concerns; and that Bob could also transcend his self-righteous and barely concealed smug and self satisfied attachment to his pure faith, marriage, family, and general bearing of perfect rectitude. Phil later challenges Bob to evolve past his ego ideal and attachment of the perfect Christian and move to a greater capacity to gain perspective, compassion, and with it, a more far reaching humanity to be able to connect from his heart.

A favorite quote of mine of many years comes from R.D. Laing, who wrote in the Politics of Experience: "We all live in the hope that authentic meeting between people can still occur." Past the grind of the road, the weariness of a thousand throbbing hand shakes; a million hospitality suites and warn pillow cases for weary heads too dead (as Dylan might have said) for dreaming, are people hungering for connection: with God; with another; with themselves. And the hope that such connection might occur past ideology or soul-numbing pursuit is what, for me, this film is all about.

It's a gorgeous piece of work.

Fred

Dear All,

Got to see The End of the Affair, the new Neil Jordan film starring Julianne Moore (one of those rare performers congenitally incapable of turning in a bad performance), Ralph Fiennes (who might be in danger of getting type-cast as WWII era tragic lovers and/or villains), and Stephen Rea, who appears to hold a similar relationship to this director as Robert DiNiro has with Martin Scorcesse.

I entered the theater with high expectations. I have admired the work of all concerned, including Graham Greene, on who's work this film is based. Imagine my disappointment to discover this movie to be one of the most overwrought enterprises of the year. Saccharine, overwritten, claustrophobic, badly scored with a wearing, wearyingly repetitive musical score (yes....their love is obsessive and unfulfilled.....I get it.....so enough already!), and horribly cliched throughout. Not even the fine acting could save this multi-faceted attack on the cinematic sweet tooth.

This film has been given accolades, and I'm at a loss to understand why. A badly written script is to a movie what a breach to the hull is to a ship. No matter the talent of the crew, and the bravery of all concerned, nothing is going to keep that vessel from going down.

After the film, I put on my coat, dusted off the snow on the way to my car, and pondered when to make an appointment with my physician to have him check my triglycerides.

Lulu, the protagonist of _Pandora's box_ portrayed by Louise Brooks, lives beyond the constraints of time. She was radiant, outrageous - an icon of modernity that seemed to transcend all time and place. She challenged sexual conventions, and became a screen seductress like no other - not through the traditional devices of the femme fatale, but rather through her bold, kittenish innocence.

This portrayal of innocence is largely what makes her performance both powerful and unique. She's outrageously excessive and provocative, but because she engenders such sympathy, we cannot fail to identify with her. In a sense, she seduces us as she seduces the men whom she encounters. That identification, despite her destructiveness, is much of what makes this film so compelling; we love her despite ourselves.

There are three films that permanently altered my sense of the power of the silent cinema: Sunrise (Murnau); The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer), and this triumph.

This film reaches the highest pinnacle of the cinematic experience; it transforms the viewer through its indelible images and hypnotic captivation.

I can only wish that the first time viewer has the pleasure of experiencing this film and Brooks' immortal performance in a theater with live accompaniment as I did at the Virginia Film Festival.