Reviews

It's awfully refreshing to see a film like this; and depressing to realize that even on a tiny screen, with jarring commercials every twenty minutes, it's still a good sight better than most movies coming out today.

Director Nichols is a master of creating mood on screen; every scene, every shot even, is carefully aimed to mirror the mood of protagonist Yossarian. When he is not in the scene, the tone shifts abruptly to one of absurd humor (particularly the glorious scene with Bob Newhart as Major Major, which is even funnier than it was in the book). It takes a real talent to synthesize this type of comedy with the pure psychological drama of Yossarian's character, and Nichols pulls it off - the constant flashback scenes, which would be ludicrous in a lesser film (and were even pushing it in the book) are entirely believable and powerful.

Of course it doesn't hurt to have a cast stacked with first-rate actors, even in minor parts. Alan Arkin (Yossarian) captures the realism of his character perfectly, and everyone else is just larger-than-life enough to reflect Yossarian's state of mind perfectly. Particularly notable is the great Jon Voight as the manic wheeler-dealer Milo.

If at times the script becomes overpowering and confusing, that's due to its understandable attempt to capture as much of the book's chaotic energy as possible. A viewer who hadn't read Catch-22 may be left cold by some of the scenes, though, and that may be the movie's only weak point.

Still, this is what happens when every ingredient of a film comes together - a cinematic experience that works on every level. Highly recommended.

"The Interpreter" made me sad. I really wanted to like it, mostly because of the limitless respect I have for Sydney Pollack, Sean Penn, and Nicole Kidman, but it just fell flat.

To begin with, Kidman decided for some odd reason that she didn't need to act as long as she could put on a passable White African accent. If it wasn't for her incredible charisma, it would be painful to watch. Penn, her costar, is handed an incredibly obvious stock character and almost manages to breathe life into it through sheer brute force of good acting. If there's any performance to suggest Penn is a latter-day De Niro, this it - his slow-burn intensity grips the audience even when his hackneyed lines do not.

But if the performances balance each other out, it's the script that tips the scales toward "bad." Even if the initial story verges on believable and exciting (if one can accept the monumental coincidence that the entire story is based on), the screenplay is a classic three-man hack job. There are all of two characters in the film, both taken right out of 1955 (the Hard-Boiled Cop who has Suffered a Loss, and the Enigmatic Beautiful Woman who has Also Suffered A Loss), and everyone else is a cardboard cutout. There are long and unnecessary stretches of ludicrous dialogue - particularly notable is one supposedly poignant early scene where Kidman tells Penn about a grieving custom of her home country. I kept expecting Penn to break into giggles, or turn to the audience and say "Well, this is a load of crap, huh?" But he doesn't - he somehow manages to just nod along stony-faced while Kidman blathers.

This is Pollack's basic problem - he's accustomed to working with good, quality screenplays that stand on their own. Thus he can lean back during dialogue sequences and let the lines carry themselves. Unfortunately, this script is birdcage liner, and Pollack leans back way too far. The audience may actually find itself laughing openly at some of the ostensibly serious lines, and the director can do nothing.

During the action sequences Pollack redeems himself - the climax is gripping, and there is one scene midway through set on a city bus that is a gleaming example of cinematic mastery. But these are the exceptions; in total one finds oneself bored, waiting for the "characters" to shut up and get on with the action. Recommended for the patient, the African political junkie, or the fan of Nicole Kidman's perfect hair.

"Waiting For Guffman" is like so much great improv comedy - it has flashes of brilliance, but can never find the structure it needs to ever really end.

In its opening two acts, the mostly freeform nature of the plot works well, allowing the actors to riff almost endlessly on their characters, and it's amusing for a surprisingly long time. But the joy is in the little traits of the characters, particularly the hilariously absurd interview scenes, and once they're all on screen together the momentum disappears. Having to follow a plot is clearly irritating for these gifted comedians, and the third-act surprise so obviously intended as the grand climax of the movie is tossed aside like so much used Kleenex. The film seems to just trail off in its final 30 minutes, straddling some invisible line between comedy and (strangely enough) poignancy, and the audience finds itself simply wanting the movie to end. Which it does, abruptly and unsatisfactorily. Morosely we shuffle out, disappointed.

Still, the sheer joy of the first two acts is well worth the price of admission or rental, and there are far worse ways one could spend two hours. Recommended for anyone who's lived in a small town or is willing to laugh at absurdity. (Which usually go together.)

Upon its beginning, one realizes almost instantly that this film was adapted from a play, if only from listening to the characters' lines. The dialogue is absolute perfection, the Nirvana of the writer, in its synthesis of ultra-realistic speech patterns and riveting material. Even the most mundane discussion is difficult to turn off. This is, of course, the hallmark of theater, where there is no orchestral score or fantastic cinematography to distract the audience - dialogue must stand on its own. It's a practice all too absent from most film.

The "poetic realism" style continues through into visuals, as every shot is calculatingly composed for maximum emotional effect without straying from the documentary setup. In one particularly memorable moment, an innocuous American flag in a bar becomes a wrenchingly powerful symbol. Considering that the original play was done with no set beyond a table and chairs, it's a radical departure - and one that goes surprisingly well.

Though the film begins to drag through its second half, and hits a low point with an apparently poignant but in fact quite artificial and dry monologue from Shepard's father, the impact of its unconventional style is enough to propel it through to a more or less satisfying conclusion. Recommended for anyone who can tolerate serious film.

If one can even call this pompous indulgence of the wet dreams of a cinematographer a "movie," it's not a very good one. With all due respect to Ron Fricke, a master of camera-work (and absolute god of time-lapse photography), his film would be greatly improved by the presence of an actual director. Every shot in the film is fabulously composed, perfectly executed, and left to mold on the screen until every bit of life is drained from it. That part of the audience which manages to stay awake is rewarded with nothing but more endless tedium, as Fricke drills his environmentalist message into our heads with all the subtlety and grace of a jackhammer outside an apartment window.

Particularly offensive is Fricke's conceit (the natural one of a cinematographer) that this material can be presented absolutely objectively, without any consideration of context or (God forbid!) perspective. The viewer thus must either shut down his or her mind and nod dumbly along with the grating score, or face 90 minutes of utter revulsion - as happened in my case. Recommended only for the particularly agreeable, the insomniac, or the time-lapse photography enthusiast.

"Tuck Everlasting" was, while not the worst piece of tripe I've ever been forced to experience, certainly right down there. This butchering of a decent children's book manages to be both dull and stupid, often at the same time.

It is hard to decide where to start, but obviously the direction is a major element. Russell's gratuitous use of slow motion nearly caused me to vomit, not to mention his freeze-frame flashbacks which seemed nonsensical rather than realistic. The entire feel of the film seemed to swing from mind-numbingly boring to mind-numbingly obvious.

The writing was pathetic, with the use of a voice-over which manages neither to advance the plot nor create atmosphere (rather, it does cause the audience to roll its collective eyes several times). Plotline was all but nonexistent until the last third or so of the movie, with the writers (and director, for that matter) apparently wanting to audience to enjoy the film's admittably wonderful (though quickly tiresome) forest scenery.

I hardly blame the actors for their mostly lackluster performances, given the wooden script they had to work with. Poor William Hurt got such a dull and pointless character... the saving grace was Ben Kingsley as the gleefully malicious Man in the Yellow Suit. Of course Alexis Bledel was as cute as always in the lead role. However, their talents were wasted here.

It seems to me that Disney couldn't decide who their audience was for this film - whether they wanted to make a charming story about immortality and magic in the past aimed at the younger demographic, or a deeply philosophical movie about the nature of life for the older audiences. In the end they tried to strike a compromise and made neither, as the charm of the story was completely hidden by the snooze-inducing direction and the philosophical debate of the book was truncated to two lines.

Unless you're an Alexis Bledel fan, stay away from "Tuck Everlasting" at all costs.

"Anger Management" is two movies. One, with the lead played by Adam Sandler, is a charmingly vile comedy about sex jokes and random acts of violence. The other, however, is a surprisingly apt social commentary.

Jack Nicholson plays the lead in the second film, as a semi-fraudulent anger management therapist coaching the entirely likable Sandler. They are an absolutely inspiring pair, representing perhaps the ultimate conflict between Joe Ordinary Baseball-Fan and the intellectual New Age elitist. In the perfect setting for this, post-911 New York (with a poignant scene about air security), Anger Management portrays a struggle between Sandler and Nicholson over what is proper and what is stupid in modern existence, represented perfectly in a scene which is not only an apt metaphor but also one the funniest comic scenes in recent times, as Sandler's car is stopped on the Queensboro Bridge so he can sing Sondheim/Bernstein's "I Feel Pretty" as motorists passing by shout obscenities.

If only people were able to go into these comedies, which are promoted as such to attract mass audiences, and watch them as serious film. Certainly, of course, this is a classic Adam Sandler film, but it is so much more, and the presence of Jack Nicholson after his singularly brilliant performance in "About Schmidt" should signal that if nothing else. Yet, somehow, people are so prejudiced by their critically-reinforced notions that comedy is nothing more than a diversion, and do not realize the insightful effect that humor can have on society - look at Mark Twain, for example. This film is a deeply American one on all levels, and if one can simply throw away any preconceived notions, "Anger Management" can even be a moving - yes, moving - experience.

Don't go renting "East Side Story" because you want an insightful portrait of life in Communist countries through their musicals. Don't go renting it if you want a detailed technical study of the musical from an unusual point of view. Don't, by all means, go renting it if you want to cry over the poignancy of the worker's hardships manifested by singing. Do, however, rent it if you want to point at the TV and laugh "Ha ha! Dancing Communists! Ha ha ha!"

Not to knock dancing Communists. Certainly "East Side Story" is a rollicking good time, but nothing more than that - this is no "Bowling for Columbine," certainly. The narration is insipid, and the interviews are of varying quality, but the clips from the musicals and the simply funny premise make this a recreational documentary that, by all means, go and check out if you've nothing meaningful to do.

Ishtar was a hilarious comedy, but doomed to failure by the time period in which it was released. Think about it. It was the 80s - the decade of Rocky and the A-Team. People came into the theater expecting Warren Beatty and his partner to fight crime in the Middle East while occasionally throwing off a glamorous joke. Instead, what they got was a pair of bumbling oafs - songwriters, no less - BAD songwriters, no less - who never even realize they're saving the world.

In a nutshell, Ishtar was too smart for the 1980s. It tried to rely on the hilarious twisting around of roles, from talentless musician to talentless hero, which didn't penetrate the audience. And the singing sequences, which had me in stitches, just bounced off the audience (which expected the lead characters to be very good but unappreciated, as they again couldn't fathom a movie without a hero.)

The second thing that killed it was the bad press it got. Everyone commenting on its being the "worst movie of the decade" meant even those who would have the capacity to understand it, even today, start out with an initial prejudice. Just watch Ishtar as a subversive anti-hero comedy, and you'll understand its genius.

I can understand the woes of the reviewers here who claim "unfunny" and "plodding". For the average person, yes. But to a Canadian (like myself), this is absolutely hilarious, and - I hate to say it - all the stereotypes presented are TRUE. The graffiti gag really struck close to home, and now (with the Ontario health care system imploding) the hospital bits seem especially funny. "Also, we're supposed to give you a kidney transplant. Wait, that can't be right."

Not a particularly funny movie overall (although I thought the epilogue was brilliant), but worth the $60 million Canadian dollars to rent.