t
jpoL5.20Û2’ )M tM K | 4 1
D eath to
S moochy
Like previous Danny DeVito films (Throw
Momma from the Train, The War of the Roses),
his latest project brims with inspired lunacy, dark
humor and inventive situations. Publicly dis
graced kiddie show entertainer Robin Williams
plots to destroy his successor, Smoochy (Edward
Norton, brilliant as always), who meanwhile
attempts to reform the corrupt and dangerous
world of childrens entertainment. Harvey Fier-
stein’s amusing appearance as a charity fund
racketeer is not the only “gay theme” here.
— Kevin Moore
<£>
I n
the
B edroom
Todd Field’s dark, stoic drama— misrepre
sented in Miramax’s relentless ad campaign as
some sort of stalking thriller— is overhyped,
but its flawless execution is unquestionable.
Rather than the expected criticism of small
town mores, Field and screenwriter Robert
Festinger reveal the disturbing ferocity under
lying familial relations with sharply contrasted
maternal (Sissy Spacek) and paternal (Wil
liam Mapother) instincts. Spacek s perform
ance hilly warrants her deafening acclaim.
— Christopher McQuain
I ris
Kate Winslet actually seems to channel
Iris Murdoch as a young woman despite
writer/director Richard Eyre’s determination
to bland down the eccentric, brilliant bisex
ual novelist and her writer husband, John Bay-
ley (Jim Broadhent and Hugh Bonneville),
into tiresomely “serious” movie subjects. Judi
Dench as the older Murdoch is fine but wast
ed, as Eyre’s middlebrow sensibility precludes
much of interest in favor of a predictable, Life-
time-movie Alzheimer’s storyline.
—CM
<£§> <£> K issing J essica S tein
Two attractive women find love in the per
sonal ads, but can essentially straight girls
become gay? What could have been a homo-
phobic embarrassment isn’t in this adaptation
by Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen
of their stage play. Fortunately the pair insisted
on playing the leads, too, which is largely why
this film is so dam endearing.
— Lisa Bradshaw
Room is a success.
Director David
Fincher (Seven,
Fight Club)
offers the usual
showy, techno
philic camera
tricks, and it’s filmed in
his patented slick, dark Dank
’n’ Damp-ovision (which actually does
befit the story). We also get to see Jodie Foster dis
play the fiercest maternal iastincts this side of
Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
What's
and what's
In a theater
<§> <&> P anic R oom
In the “for what it is" category: For what it
is— an action suspense thriller, basically— Panic
<*£>> only if you’re really hungry
<&b <C§> < ^ > good effort, pass the salt
<2^
mmmm, tasty!
<£><& > get the big tub o’ com
through restraint in pacing and performance.
Include You Can Count on Me, and this sort of
perceptive, cheese-free clarity and integrity
almost seems like a trend. If so, let’s thank the
cinema gods and ask them to keep it coming.
—CM
M onster ’ s B all
A heartbreaking, incendiary, passionately
erotic drama involving a racist cop (Billy Bob
Thornton) and the widow (Halle Berry) of a
black inmate he helped execute. The unlikely
twosome become, through a tortuous chain of
events, romantically involved. Some situa
tions and resolutions seem a bit pat and con
trived, but under Marc Forster’s sharp direc
tion, the pacing and performances are spot-on.
?M
dud, bottom of the bag
Y T u M ama T ambien
Jodie Foster and her baby-dyke daughter kick
ass in Panic Room
T he S on ’ s R oom
Italian auteur Nanni Moretti won the Palme
D’Or at Cannes Film Festival for this affecting
story of a healthy, happy family coping with the
inexplicable death of a child. Like In the Bed -
room, it rises above the family-drama fray
Using storytelling quirks similar to those in
Amélie, director/co-writer Alfonso Cuaron
somehow achieves the impossible: A teen sex
comedy that actually shows sex. A buddy
movie in which one friendship’s limits truly are
put to the test. A coming-of-age road trip
where the characters arrive in a much
different place by the end of their
journey. Don’t miss it.
—Jim Radas ta
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