|
film
clips opening or
returning: Chicken Run: Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit) and his partner at Aardman Animations, Peter Lord, work their magic on clay creatures. Life on Tweedy's Farm has become brutal, and the chickens' fearless leader, Ginger (voice, Julia Sawalha) recruits an American rooster (voice, Mel Gibson) to teach them to fly. Hilarious good fun for the whole family. G. Cinemark 17. Cinema World 8. Movieland 6. See review this issue. Dudley Do-Right: Brendan Fraser and Sarah Jessica Parker star in Hugh Wilson's adaptation of the animated 1960s TV series about a goofy Canadian Mountie battling the evil Snidely Whiplash. PG. Free family film festival at 10 am 6/27 and 6/28. Cinema World 8. East-West: Regis Wargnier (Indochine) directs this love story of a Russian doctor and his French wife who live through Stalin's post-WWII Russia. Stars Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menchikov and Catherine Deneuve. Very highly recommended. R. Bijou. See review this issue. 42 Up: Every seven years documentary filmmaker Michael Apted has re-interviewed many of the 14 British school children - 10 boys and four girls - he selected in 1964 for a TV documentary called "7UP." An unprecedented series of highly acclaimed films has resulted, and this is the latest . Don't miss this excellent work. NR. Bijou. See review this issue. I Dreamed of Africa: Kim Basinger and Vincent Perez star in the film version of wildlife activist Kuki Gallmann's autobiography about living in the Kenyan bush with her family. Directed by Hugh Hudson. Movies 12. Keeping the Faith: Edward Norton is a priest and Ben Stiller a rabbi. Successful New Yorkers and childhood friends, their lives fall into turmoil when an old girlfriend played by Jenna Elfman comes back into their lives. PG-13. Movies 12. Me, Myself & Irene: Jim Carrey plays a man with a split personality disorder who runs into trouble when he runs out of medication. Renee Zellweger plays a woman on the run who falls in love with both of them. R. Cinema World 8. Cinemark 17. Movieland 6. Muppets From Space: The usual suspects - Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie the Bear - and the hero, Gonzo, try to locate Gonzo's relatives, who might be aliens from outer space. G. Cinema World 8. Screwed: Norm Macdonald and Dave Chappelle in a caper flick about a dog-napping. PG-13. Free family film festival at 10 am 6/27 and 6/28. Cinema World 8. Twenty-eight Days: Sandra Bullock goes to rehab after she smashes her sister's car while driving drunk. Co stars Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortenson as counselors, Dianne Ladd, Marianne Jean-Baptiste as fellow alcoholics. PG-13. Late night Bijou. Films open the Friday following date of EW publication unless otherwise noted continuing: Big Momma's House: Martin Lawrence plays an FBI agent assigned to protect a single mom, played by Nia Long. He goes to Georgia dressed as her grandmother, Big Momma. Directed by Raja Gosnell. PG-13. Cinemark 17. Movieland 6. Boys and Girls: Freddie Prinze Jr. in a romantic comedy with Claire Forlani. Directed by Robert Iscove, who directed Prinze in She's All That. PG-13. Cinemark 17. Cinema World 8. Cider House Rules: Loss-of-innocence fable stars Tobey Maguire and Academy-Award winner Michael Caine. Lasse Hallstrom directs John Irving's screenplay. Also stars Charlize Theron, Delroy Lindo, Paul Rudd, Jane Alexander, Kathy Baker and singer Erykah Badu. Fearless pro-abortion stance is remarkable. PG-13. Movies 12. Dinosaur: Disney gets a little risqué with a PG rating, no songs and computer-generated dinosaurs against live-action backgrounds. Otherwise, this film is your classic cuddly Disney. Stars the voices of D.B. Sweeney, Julianna Margulies and Della Reese. PG. Cinemark 17. Movieland 6. Erin Brockovich: Gutsy single mom brings class-action lawsuit against PG&E for discharging chemical pollutants into community drinking water. Steven Soderbergh directs. Julia Roberts stars, with Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart. Top-notch screen entertainment. R. Movies 12. Fantasia 2000: Disney created seven new segments in the vein of the studio's 1940 classic favorite. Millennial version includes the original Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and a new Stravinsky Firebird Suite that's fabulous. G. McDonald. Cinemark 17. Flintstones in Viva Las Vegas, The: Young Fred Flintstone (Mark Addy) courts Wilma Slaghoople (Kristen Johnston) in this comedy directed by Brian Levant. Also stars Stephen Baldwin, Jane Krakowski, Joan Collins and Harvey Korman. PG. Movies 12. Gladiator: Ridley Scott's Roman spectacle stars Russell Crowe (The Insider) as Maximus, a famous Roman general now slave gladiator. His enemy, Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), also stars Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and Djimon Hounsou. Highly recommended. R. Cinemark 17. Cinema World 8. Gone in 60 Seconds: Angelina Jolie, Nicolas Cage, Robert Duvall, Delroy Lindo and Giovanni Ribisi star in Dominic Sena's car-thief drama. Cage and Ribisi play siblings "with grand theft auto in their genes," according to Entertainment Weekly. Surprisingly entertaining. R. Cinemark 17. Cinema World 8. High Fidelity: Stephen Frears directs his adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel in this romantic comedy starring John Cusack, with Iben Hjejle, Jack Black and Todd Louiso. A funny, credible movie with everything going for it. The funniest movie of the year so far. Very highly recommended. R. Bijou. Magnolia: Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) directs this medley of L.A, stories and gets excellent performances from a cast that includes William H. Macy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Philip Baker Hall and Jason Robards. Cruise won a '99 Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award. R. Movies 12. Mission to Mars: Brian DePalma directs Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Jerry O'Connell and Don Cheadle as a rescue team headed for Mars to find survivors of an earlier manned mission. PG. Movies 12. Mission: Impossible 2: Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames return to this lucrative franchise, based on the 1960s TV series, with John Woo directing and Thandie Newton (Besieged, Beloved) as the love interest. R. Cinemark 17. Cinema World 8. Return to Me: Romantic drama written and directed by Bonnie Hunt stars David Duchovny and Minnie Driver. Mixed reviews, but Driver is reportedly great. PG. Movies 12. Road to El Dorado, The: Animated musical comedy with music by Elton John and voices by Rosie Perez, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Armand Assante and Edward James Olmos. PG. Movies 12. Road Trip: College partying silliness directed by Todd Phillips stars Breckin Meyer, Tom Green and Amy Smart. R. Cinemark 17. Shaft: John Singleton's update of Gordon Parks' 1971 blaxploitation smash hit stars Samuel L. Jackson as the nephew of Richard Roundtree's original private detective; also stars Vanessa Williams. Music by Isaac Hayes. R. Cinemark 17. Movieland 6. Shanghai Noon: Jackie Chan plays a Chinese imperial guard sent to the Old West to rescue a kidnapped princess played by Lucy Liu. Owen Wilson is a thief who becomes Chan's sidekick. Directed by Tom Dey. PG-13. Cinema World 8. Cinemark 17. Movieland 6. Tigger Movie, The: Disney's animated movie about Winnie the Pooh and pals. Starring T-I-double gerr. G. Movies 12. Titan A.E.: Animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman direct this tale of a post-Earth epic journey by a rebellious teen who must find the Titan machine that can recreate the planet. Voices by Matt Damon, Bill Pullman, Drew Barrymore, John Leguizamo, Janeane Garofalo and Nathan Lane. PG. Cinema World 8. Cinemark 17. Where the Heart Is: Matt Williams directs Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing and Joan Cusack. Portman plays abandoned, pregnant 17-year old whose family and friends encourage her to make a new life for herself. PG-13. Movies 12. movie
theaters Bijou Art Cinemas Regal Cinemas Cinemark Theaters video
clips Beautiful People: Set in 1993, Jasmin Dizdan's first film looks at the effects of the Bosnian war on Londoners. The New York Times review said it treats urban life's complexities realistically but with "a playful, improvisatory sense of formal possibility," and the film ends up "a funny valentine to London, to chaos and to human decency." R. Hanging Up: Nora and Delia Ephron's film project stars Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow as sisters who are forced to iron out the problems in their relationship when their father (Walter Matthau) becomes ill. PG-13. Talented Mr. Ripley, The: Director Anthony Minghella expands Patricia Highsmith's novel for this chilling film set in sun-drenched Italy of the 1950s. Matt Damon plays one of the most compelling sociopaths in film, and Jude Law is equally brilliant as the wealthy expatriate whose life he covets. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow. R. Next week: Scream 3. movie
reviews East-West: Directed by Regis Wargnier. Written by Wargnier, Roustam Ibraguimbek, Serguei Bodrov and Louis Gardel. Original score, Patrick Doyle. Produced by Yves Marmion. Cinematography, Laurent Dailland. Editor, Herve Schneid. Costumes, Pierre-Yves Gayraud. Sound, Guillaume Sciama. Production design, Vladimir Svetozarov, Alexei Levtchencko. Starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menchikov, Catherine Deneuve, Erwan Baynaud, Serguei Bodrov Jr. and Grigori Manoukov. Sony Pictures Classics, 1999. R. 120 minutes. Regis Wargnier (Indochine) reaches into the past to tell the story of a loving couple lured back to Russia in 1946 by a sweeping amnesty. Today's anti-intellectual and ahistorical youth may be bored by the past, but if you have lived long enough, East-West presents a meaningful picture of what it was like in human terms to live through Stalin's regime. Paranoid persecutions were carried out by a committed security and intelligence bureaucracy. The social atmosphere was poisoned by neighbors who denounced their neighbors in order to get ahead in the party. Arrests, summary executions and exile to remote gulags was commonplace. Alexei Golovin (Oleg Menshikov, Burnt By the Sun) knows none of this as he returns to his homeland with his French wife, Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire), and their 7-year-old son, Seryozha (Ruben Tapiera). As a doctor, Alexei can look forward to a life of privilege. But as he learns immediately, his foreign-born wife is considered a spy for the West. To keep Marie and their boy safe, Alexei makes the first of many compromises with the state. He's appointed doctor at a textile factory in Kiev. They are given housing in what was once a grand house but now is a communal home to several other families and a hotbed of rumor and innuendo. Marie is appalled. She does not understand what Alexei is doing. She resists, while he conforms, and they become estranged. Other characters who come into their lives include a cruel secret police chief, Pirogov (Grigori Manukov); a young swimmer who lives in the communal household, Sacha (Serguei Bodrov Jr.); and a famous French actress, Gabrielle (Catherine Deneuve). While researching a different film project, East-West co-writer and director Regis Wargnier discovered a community living in the remote regions of Central Asia who are the children of French mothers and Russian fathers who returned to the U.S.S.R. in 1946. Marie and Alexei are inspired by people who lived through that time. Many refuse to open up to strangers, but one woman told him about the executions at the railroad stations, the separation of the families and the other acts of violence that awaited the returning émigrés. The film raises a number of questions about how the countries of the West closed their eyes to the suffering of people within the U.S.S.R.. But as Wargnier puts it: "There was a total black-out. Nobody had any news of anyone. ... The people who arrived just vanished from the face of the Earth." He notes that "the Western conscience wasn't troubled by the Russian people's situation. The Iron Curtain suited us." Wargnier credits Russian co-writers Roustam Ibraguimbek and Serguei Bodrov for the film's base in reality. Initially he wanted to exploit the drama of 20 or 30 people from varied professions living in a commune, but they wouldn't let him. They had lived in such kommunalka as children themselves. They remembered how it really was. East-West captivated me. Although the characters in the film were of a different generation, their ideals were the same as mine. The yearning for freedom so ubiquitous in the West is a luxury the people of that place and time could not indulge. Marie remains a threat to her family's security because she cannot give up her desire to be free. But she underestimates the power of her husband's love as well as the courage and goodwill of others. East-West opens Friday at the Bijou. Very highly recommended. Feat
of Clay Chicken Run: Directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park. Produced by Lord, Park and David Sproxton. Executive producers, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jake Eberts and Michael Rose. Screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick, based on Lord and Parks' original story. Music, John Powell. Editor, Mark Solomon. Starring voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha, Miranda Richardson and Jane Horrocks, with Lynn Ferguson, Imelda Staunton, Benjamin Whitrow, Tony Haygarth, Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels. Pathé and Aardman Entertainment. DreamWorks Pictures, 2000. G. 91 minutes. The opening minutes of Chicken Run express the simple premise of the film - it's a prisoner-of-war escape drama with chickens - in exquisite, hilarious detail. The light of the full moon glistens on a barbed-wire fence as a single figure darts from a rough shed. A lumbering, heavily-booted man restrains a pair of viscous dogs. Catching something at the edge of his vision, he sweeps the area with his flashlight, but the hopeful escapee hides. A simple signal brings the next chicken running. These are no ordinary chickens, and their leader, Ginger (Julia Sawalha), is a bold, fearless freedom fighter. Over and over, Mr. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth) tosses Ginger into solitary, and every time she hatches yet another escape plot. Despite Mrs. Tweedy's (Miranda Richardson) caustic comments about chicken troublemakers being all in his head, Tweedy knows those hens are up to something. But even Tweedy doesn't suspect that the chickens are hiding a runaway rooster, Rocky, who's going to teach them to fly. And Mrs. Tweedy's automatic chicken pie machine - a doomsday chicken in, pie out contraption- affords Rocky and Ginger many an Indiana Jones moment. Three-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Peter Lord of Aardman Entertainment have created some of the most engaging short animated films ever made in the last 15 years, especially Park's Wallace and Gromit series. This is Aardman's first venture into feature-length film, and DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg has snapped them up for three more films. Is Chicken Run as witty and wonderful as Park's The Wrong Trousers ? No. The Tweedys are not as human as Wallace, and even charming Ginger is no match for canny Gromit. But they do pretty well for chickens. Cluck. Cluck. Opens Friday at Cinemark 17 and Cinema World 8 and Movieland 6. See it! Michael
Apted's 7-Year Itch 42 Up: Produced and directed by Michael Apted. Co-producer, Claire Lewis. Executive producers, Ruth Pitt and Stephen Lambert. Editor, Kim Horton. Researcher, Melanie Archer. Sound, Nick Steer. Camera, George Jess Turner. Granada Films. First Run Features, 1999. NR. 139 minutes. In 1964, filmmaker Michael Apted (The World is Not Enough) interviewed and filmed 14 British school children - 10 boys and four girls for a TV documentary, "7UP," which received excellent reviews. Apted has re-interviewed and filmed the same youngsters every seven years; then he documented their progress into adulthood. Eleven now remain part of the longest-running documentary series ever. But its lengthy run is only part of what makes this series so very special. Apted and the trust he's built with these individuals over 35 years produces this dazzling cinema verité. Apted brings clips from earlier films into the present, so that we are able to see who they are now and who they were then. It's an awe-inspiring experience. When the movie started, I realized with anxiety that I have worried about one of the characters, Neil, since he anticipated in 35 Up that by 2000 he'd be homeless in London unless he had a bit of luck. He was so fragile, so genuinely on the edge that it was emotionally difficult to leave him. Discover for yourself what Neil has done with his life since then. And check out Tony from London's East End who wanted to be a jockey at age seven; upper-class Bruce who thought he'd be a missionary; school mates Jackie, Lynn and Sue, who've stayed in touch; physicist Nick; upper-class Andrew who's become a solicitor; Symon, the only black child in the series; Paul, who immigrated to Australia; and Susie, who's now a bereavement councilor. Bijou, Friday. What's Happening |
Art
Galleries |
Movies |
Music |
