Absolute Beginners: A candy-colored, well-scrubbed musical that's like an even more wholesome Hairspray. It opens with a stunning single-take shot that flies around the streets of 1950s London. Eddie O'Connell as Colin, a young photographer in love with Patsy Kensit's pouty Suzette, is adorable and engaging. But the movie loses steam as it plows into "message" territory, shifting from light-hearted teen angst to anti-racism and -gentrification. David Bowie, Ray Davies, Sade, and Mandy Rice-Davies (famous as Christine Keeler's friend in the John Profumo scandal dramatized in the movie Scandal [she was played by Bridget Fonda]) make cameo appearances to little effect. Worth seeing just for that amazing opening shot, but don't feel an obligation to sit through the whole thing.
Alive: I can't look at this movie without thinking of the Simpsons episode where Homer tries to cure Marge's fear of flying by renting videos about planes with uplifting titles: Fearless, Hero, and Alive. Alive is the movie about the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes; they are stranded on a snow-covered mountain for nearly 3 months, forcing them to turn to cannibalism to survive. The story is harrowing on its face -- that the movie maintains interest is due to the plot rather than any movie-making skill. In general, it's filmed competently, with gorgeous, chilling mountain vistas, but I have to take issue with the casting of Ethan Hawke as a rugby player. Please. And he somehow maintains a perfectly groomed goatee, with no other facial hair, throughout their three-month ordeal.
The Minus Man: Nice-guy drifter Vann (Owen Wilson) turns out to be a serial killer. The movie is aimless and uninvolving, with no explanation for Vann's murders. Noteworthy only for the way it utterly degrades Janeane Garofalo by making her a perky, giggly dimwit.
Office Killer: This movie about a mousy, mocked office drone (Carol Kane) who deals with staff lay-offs by murdering her mean-spirited co-workers wants to be a black, wicked comedy. But it's just boring, not outlandish or noir enough. I suspect the director, Cindy Sherman, meant this to be some kind of satiric commentary on the way workers -- and perhaps more specifically, women -- are treated, but it's not exactly ground-breaking insight, and it's ineptly carried off at that.
Oleanna: Rancid drama about a dull-witted, manipulative harridan (Debra Eisenstadt, who couldn't act like she was drowning if she was ten feet under water) and an arrogant professor (William H. Macy, looking frazzled and frantic). Supposedly this is a movie about sexual harassment -- if I remember correctly, one of the lines they used in promoting it was, "Whichever side you pick, you're wrong." Well, maybe, but only because the story is manipulated in such a way as to make both protagonists unbelievable and repellent. David Mamet wrote and directed this movie before he learned to adapt his rhythms to the screen; it still has the stilted, affected cadence of Mamet's worst work.
Post Coitum: Animal Triste: Gripping story about Diane, an older woman (Brigitte Roüan, who also directed) who is consumed by her fling with a younger man and can't let him go. It will feel familiar to anyone who's lost love -- though it's especially depressing to think that it doesn't get any better at 40 than it was at 26. Nils Tavernier is especially good as the mercurial author Diane's company is publishing.
Two Hands: Starring a pre-10
Things I Hate About You Heath Ledger, this Australian TV movie
is a fast-paced black comedy about a bunch of none-too-bright petty
thieves.
Ledger, looking much sexier than he does now, is terrific as the
slightly
dim hero, Jimmy, who screws up a job for local crime boss Pando (Bryan
Brown) and has to scramble to make things right before Pando's thugs
find
him and kill him.
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