Reviews

*** 1/2 stars out of ****

Almost every French actress I can rhyme off without help from the audience is in the cast of François Ozon's 8 Femmes, a delightfully odd murder mystery with song-and-dance interludes--imagine if John Waters had directed Clue. The film takes place during Christmastime in 1950s France at a country manor where various women have gathered to celebrate the holidays with Marcel, the only significant man in any of their lives. But Marcel has been stabbed in the back (literally), and a snow drift outside leaves the eight femmes of the title stranded together with nothing to do other than accuse each other of his murder. Was it Marcel's loveless wife (Catherine Deneuve)? One of his off-kilter daughters (Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier)? The "ugly" sister-in-law (Isabelle Huppert, donning horn-rimmed glasses) or patently dishonest mother-in-law (Danielle Darrieux)? His promiscuous sister by blood (Fanny Ardant)? Or did the butler--rather, either of the two maidservants (Firmine Richard and Emmanuelle Béart)--do it? With a plot that strikes as stream-of-consciousness and musical numbers that do, too, 8 Femmes indicates little desire to change the world, but it works as a frothy, hyper-theatrical experience. Compounding the amusement are the sparse, candy-coloured sets--which bring to mind Gold Key's exiguously-drawn comics from yesteryear--and watching so many famously sedate performers let their hair down; one can't imagine the Meg Ryan remake of The Women, in lieu of which this film was made, being half as much fun.

I know it sounds corny but MATES, written by female scribe Claudia Salter, pulls out all the punches in letting you know this candidate, Magnum himself, is a man of dignity and pride. A man our country so desperately needs in our cynical, money grabbing world that is our society today. It's the Clinton aftermath and Pryce and his loyal campaign manager Lauren, (Laura Linney) who has wanted to be president herself ever since she was a child, is leading Pryce into a smooth victory using all the manipulating tasks and strategies that are most assuredly common place in today's elections. Including having Pryce's daughter run up to him while he is on camera for a `planned spontaneous emotional moment.'

This infuriates Mrs. Pryce (Nancy Travis) who tells the overzealous Lauren, `You are never to use my daughter again. She will not be a tool in your campaign agenda!' Meow! But something suggests these women have more in common than the concern of Governor Pryce. Lauren is also an ex-girlfriend of his, and so are his social secretary (Teri Hatcher) and one of his political chums (Faye Dunaway), who desperately wants Prcye to choose her husband (Robert Culp) as his VP. Apparently before Pryce devoted all his love to Mrs. Pryce he passed his love around generously.

RUNNING MATES, a TNT Original film, is good TV but without much controversy. Sure there is an established 'bad guy' (Bruce McGill) who would do anything to nab the job of vice president, it's quite clear he doesn't have a chance in hell of being president so why not the next best thing. But overall the film is consistently too nice. In one out of place scene Lauren has a dispute with Pryce and storms off to her hotel room and then, `knock-knock', she is suddenly surrounded by all his exes and his current wife. They all console her and then compare sex stories with Pryce, including his wife!? This comes out of no where when just minutes earlier the women didn't care for each other in the least. It seems to have been added only to fit the bill of having all these ladies (Travis, Dunaway, Hatcher, Linney) in a room together talking smut.

And just when you thought Pryce might turn out to be a sellout something remarkable happens right out of left field. No explanation is given as to why and a much needed previous scene to suggest his mind frame is non-existent. Instead we are left to read his mind and think, `He did it because it was the right thing to do, right?' But, then again, that's never stopped a politician before? So who knows!

Guess what? Everyone in Hollywood is vain! That's the big revelation according to this muddled misfire of a really great idea from co-producer/co-writer Billy Crystal. He had something really meaty to bite into here - not things we already know like demanding movie stars and their all-important public profile, but the seamy world of the agents, publicists, studio execs and journalists who regulate their profiles. It's a world Crystal knows well; he's hosted enough Oscar ceremonies to understand the bitchiness behind the scenes. He adds a lot of inside jokes to the film, from the bag of goodies designed to entice journos to the junket to the circling studio execs who would let their biggest star suicide if it would boost the box office (as Stanley Tucci contemplates here). Yet Crystal's script, based largely on his experiences, is a real toothless tiger. Instead of going for the throat on the unethical goings-on of those behind the stars, it goes for standard laughs about the stars' glossy lifestyle and vain insecurities. Almost every scene ends in a one-liner, and the funniest one - when a doberman takes an interest in Crystal's crotch - is even repeated at the film's end. The result is as much a revealing look at Hollywood mechanics as a drive through Beverly Hills. It also proves that not even four heavyweight A-list actors can rescue a poorly scripted film. Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack, and Billy Crystal have absolutely no rapport, while world's number one star Julia Roberts (basically a bit player here) has less chemistry with Cusack than Crystal has with the doberman. There are some crackerjack jokes, like Crystal's "You lost 60 pounds? That's a whole Backstreet Boy!" and the way lisping Latino Hank Azaria keeps pronouncing "junket" as "honket." But few of what's intended hits the mark. Zeta-Jones' demanding starlet isn't bitchy enough to be truly monstrous (didn't she see Bette Midler in Drowning Mona?) and Roberts' delectable underdog is a role way beneath her. It consists of smiling painfully and awaiting the inevitable. Mildly entertaining but instantly forgettable, America's Sweethearts is a talent-heavy misfire.

Great period costumes and sets, a cameo by Mae West, and ironic use of film clips from the Golden Age of Hollywood provide plenty of queer viewing pleasure in this adaptation of Gore Vidal's transsexual fable, though this 1970 vintage movie aged more like vinegar than fine wine--not exactly bad but difficult to savor for 94 minutes.

Sorority Boys, a film so unfunny, so misogynistic, so stunningly awful, that it may prove to be a revolution for the direct-to-video market.

In what apparently passes for high concept these days, three fraternity brothers of the Kappa Omega Kappa are accused of ripping off the fraternal members dues (kept conveniently in huge wads of cash in an upstairs safe) and are tossed out in a fit of revenge by the spurned pledgemaster (who has the hair of Buster Poindexter and the voice of Dan Aykroyd in Caddyshack II.)

Like wolves in women's clothing, the guys unsuccessfully try to break back in to retrieve a potentially incriminating videotape and are thrown out on their wigs and high heels to the doorstep of the Delta Omicron Gamma sorority where they are immediately welcomed with open arms. You would be correct in assuming that this house is filled exclusively with the less attractive girls on campus and headed by a beautiful blonde feminist who wears glasses.

That's essentially it. Brain dead flesh packages revived by Pauly Shore on an ecstacy trip know exactly what's going to happen. The boys will learn valuable lessons about what its like to be a woman while at the same time teaching the `DOGs' how to stand up for themselves against the hot pink ladies from that "other" sorority.

Truly disgusting!!!!

Dave (BARRY WATSON), Adam (MICHAEL ROSENBAUM) and Doofer (HARLAND WILLIAMS) are three guys who enjoy living in the Kappa Omicron Kappa house and throwing wild and sexist parties that irritate Leah (MELISSA SAGEMILLER), an outspoken feminist and head of the local chapter of Delta Omicron Gamma.

Yet, when Spence (BRAD BEYER), the KOK president, announces that the money the fraternity has been collecting for an important alumni cruise has been stolen by the three, they're immediately chased from the premises. When they realize that Spence was the only other person with the combination to the safe in their room and that he must have been caught on their hidden, motion-activated video camera, Dave, Adam and Doofer decide they must retrieve the tape to prove their innocence.

The only problem is that no one, including Adam's little fraternity brother, Jimmy (TONY DENMAN), will let them in. Accordingly, they show up at the next party dressed in drag and going by the names of Daisy, Adina and Roberta. Not surprisingly, their less than attractive looks immediately get them thrown from the house and to Leah's feet who's outside protesting.

Drawn in by her offer of free food as well as room and board if they pledge DOG, the three decide they can live there as women while they plot how to get their hands on that videotape. While there, they meet other sorority sisters including Patty (KATHRYN STOCKWOOD), who thinks she's a freak because of her height, Katie (HEATHER MATARAZZO) who has a rather loud speaking voice, and Frederique (YVONNE SCIO), a rather hairy French student.

As the men try to keep up their ruse, they soon learn the trials and tribulation of being a less than attractive woman at the college, all while Dave begins to fall for Leah who sees him as a compassionate female friend and possible lover. With the date of the important alumni cruise nearing, the three men in drag try to deal with their femininity while also attempting to clear their names of theft.

It has spooky atmosphere, a wicked twist of an ending and an ice-cold grabber of a performance by Nicole Kidman as Grace, a mother who isolates her two children in a Victorian mansion on the British isle of Jersey near the end of World War II. Grace, who fears her husband (Christopher Eccleston) has died in battle, keeps her two kids - Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) - in the dark. Literally. She tells the new housekeeper (the expert Fionnula Flanagan) that daylight will cause fits in Anne and Nicholas. Curtains must always be drawn and doors firmly locked. Then the noises start, and the visions and the strange voices.

No fair revealing more plot details. But you should know that The Others is the American feature debut of the gifted young Spanish director Alejandro Amenebar, whose 1998 film, Open Your Eyes, has been remade as Vanilla Sky by director Cameron Crowe and stars Tom Cruise, who served as co-producer on The Others before his marriage to Kidman went kaput. It's not hard to see what Cruise sees in Amenebar - this is a filmmaker who knows how to hold an audience with artful stealth. Only some bumpy, arid passages in the script keep The Others out of the master class occupied by the likes of The Sixth Sense and, my favorite, 1961's The Innocents, based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. When it comes to turning the screws of psychological terror, Amenebar is an expert technician.

Jane Campion has adapted Henry James' classic 1881 novel "The Portrait of a Lady" in off-kilter style. The result is a pleasing if not entirely successful loosening up of the traditional costume drama. Her modern viewpoints spring naturally from the novel's themes, but sometimes the tricks she plays, though witty, are not essential. She gets beneath the skin of Isabel Archer's misguided quest for an intelligent life--literally, for the movie contains those Campionesque below-the-surface touches in which objects seem to sigh, the earth to move, the soul to thud in the lungs--in a way that points up that no living moment is mundane. The dialogue, the sense of time and place as the cultures of the Old and New Worlds collide in 19th-century Europe, the heroic charm of Isabel, the manipulative allure of Madame Merle who leads her astray: All these are handled with imagination and ease, but not the storyline or the men who people its path.

Nicole Kidman is a splendid Isabel, curving forth to shape her own destiny with an appealing mix of naivete and regality, and Barbara Hershey's bruised beauty imbues with rue her Merle's trickery. But the male roles are miscast. John Malkovich is too obvious a choice for the evil lounge lizard Gilbert Osmond, so his portrayal therefore lacks fascination. Richard E. Grant as Lord Warburton is without the dignity that would have made the proposal of marriage to Archer less easy to reject. Viggo Mortensen's dime-novel good looks oversimplify the threatening ardor of the insistent Caspar Goodwood. Martin Donovan, despite his many well-timed coughs, seems too vigorous as the consumptive Ralph Touchett. In consequence, following Isabel's feelings toward each and every lover becomes a very bumpy ride, while the overview that Campion espouses is also uncertain in judgment and tone. The costumes (wondrously flattering to Kidman's figure--or maybe it's vice versa) and production design by Janet Patterson have a cruel beauty. Mary-Louise Parker is amusing as the stridently "modern" Henrietta Stackpole, and Sir John Gielgud amazingly original in a cameo deathbed scene.

The story is set just before, during and after the Second World War, a time of unparalleled American political radicalism. Streisand plays Katie Morosky, a university student and vocal leader of the Young Communists. She is drawn to the strikingly handsome, athletic and intelligent Hubbell Gardner (Redford), whose glibness and All American good looks anger and attract Katie, while also masking his apparently fine writing talents. One must say 'apparently', as we are never given any indications of what makes him such a fine writer. In fact, we are given little indication of what makes him a worthy object of the much more interesting, active and intelligent Katie's desire. If her attraction is simply to his Hellenic beauty, this seriously undercuts the great romance the filmmakers have attempted to construct.

The story is an insightful examination of the conflicting political ideas of its two leads, matching Katie the red against Hubbell the conventionalist, their exchanges explode with tension. The blandness of Hubbell's ideas leaves one with sympathy for Katie, as he looks dull she looks vibrant and exudes fire and verve. Further, against Redford's mannered performance, Streisand looks in command, her face reflecting the inner turmoil she is feeling. It's not hard to fathom why their coupling is considered one of film's great pairings. They look as natural together as Gable and Lombard.

Lastly, kudos to the ubiquitous Academy Award-winning theme. Layered over every scene of even the slightest emotional importance, this has to be one of the most gorgeous themes in film's history. Lovers and romantics, be forewarned.

A powerful adaptation of Frank D. Gilroy's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Timmy Cleary has just returned home to the Bronx after fighting in World War II. It doesn't take long, however, before he finds himself in the middle of his parents' bickering. His mother and father, Nettie and John, are stuck in an unhappy marriage that only seems to get worse with the passage of time. John has never rebounded from the Depression, when his business failed, and, as a result, the couple has only barely scraped by over the years. But being away at war has made Timmy grow up and, for the first time, he starts coming to terms with his troubled parents...

The dark wonder of the Brothers Grimm, the quixotic imagination of writer/director Caroline Thompson (The Addams Family, Edward Scissorhands), state-of-the art special effects by Reel Elements and the breathtaking spectacle that has become a symbol of Hallmark Entertainment combine for a truly visionary retelling of the classic fairy tale . . .

Born from a drop of blood in a flutter of apple blossoms, and framed in ebony, a young girl named Snow White becomes the blessing of a loving peasant couple, John and Josephine. But with her birth comes a curse and the end of her mother's life. Left alone with an infant daughter, John braves a brutal winter in search of food for his starving angel. Salvation comes unexpectedly when the father's tears melt the frozen tomb of a bewitched creature, the Green-Eyed One. In thanks, the insinuating beast grants John three wishes: nourishment for Snow White, a kingdom in which to raise his family and a queen by his side. But John's cause for celebration is short-lived.

For the Green-Eyed One has devious plans for the well-being of his own family. Owing his loathsome spellcasting daughter, Elspeth, a long-awaited wish, he encourages her desires for appointment to the throne. A kingdom to rule is hers for the waiting, the new King John is hers for the belittling and a luscious little stepdaughter named Snow White, is hers to toy with and destroy at will.

The castle awaits. A looking glass is calling. And a fairy tale like no o ther begins...