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Family
Nightmares
The unvarnished reality.
By Lois
Wadsworth
MONSTER'S BALL: Directed by Marc Forster.
Written by Milo Addica, Will Rokos. Producer, Lee Daniels. Executive producers, Mark
Urman, Michael Burns, Michael Paseornek. Cinematography, Roberto Schaefer. Production
design, Monroe Kelly. Editor, Matt Chesse. Art director, Leonard Spears. Costumes,
Frank Fleming. Starring Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry, with Heath Ledger, Peter
Boyle, Sean Combs, Mos Def and Coronji Calhoun. Lions Gate Films, 2001. R. 108 minutes.
 |
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Leticia (Halle Berry) and Hank
(Billy Bob Thornton).
. |
|
One of the most powerful and passionate films of the year 2001 is
Swiss-born director Marc Forster's Monster's Ball. Forster (Everything
Put Together) doesn't pull his punches here. An execution in a Georgia penitentiary
located near a small town brings tragedy to two families, and in this sense it is
similar to Dead Man Walking, Tim Robbins' potent drama. Likewise, the camera
witnesses this execution. I was very uncomfortable during this sequence, and I heard
others shuffling in their seats during the long minutes it took the character to
die by electrocution.
Although we never see the crime that brought Lawrence Musgrove
(Sean Combs) to his final day after 11 years on Death Row, we're required to accept
his admission to his 12-year-old son, Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), that he has been
a bad man. His wife, Leticia (Halle Berry), refuses to forgive him. Lawrence has
one gift for Tyrell: his drawings. At home, we see how his father's life and death
has affected the boy's self-esteem. He binges on candy bars, which leads Leticia
to nag him, yell and beat him. She drinks too much.
Musgrove's death also affects Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton);
his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger); and his father, Buck (Peter Boyle). The old man is
a dyed-in-the-wool racist, with an evil mouth on him. Hank and Sonny have followed
in Buck's footsteps to become corrections officers at the pen, but generational racism
has not taken root in Sonny. Hank respects the man's last hours as he leads the electrocution
team, but it is Sonny's first time to assist, and it makes him sick. After Sonny
breaks away from the team, Hank goes crazy.
The film's first hour chronicles these and other tragic events.
If you're squeamish or just want to be entertained, look elsewhere. This film starts
hard, and it stays difficult for a long time. The reward is in the slow development
of a relationship between Leticia and Hank. Not a conjunction made in heaven, their
first sexual encounter is compounded by a raw urgency that is as formidable an emotion
as I've ever seen on the screen. But it rings true.
Berry received a best actor nod for her courageous performance
as this undereducated woman who has lost the battle against poverty. Berry doesn't
play Leticia's heartbreaking story as melodrama, choosing to show how desperation
and shame have made her vulnerable. Berry has defiantly become more than a pretty
face. At 33, she's just as beautiful as ever, but she's "not just a human coat
hangar," as she told the Oregonian.
And Thornton finally fulfills the promise of Sling Blade,
giving a no-quirks, emotionally resonant performance that even the Coen's The
Man Who Wasn't There didn't tap. Hank's redemption comes from the inside out,
and Thornton makes that interior drama believable by small gestures and silences.
Forster studied at NYU film school and made silent student films.
"What I learned was how to tell a story without words," he told The
New York Times. The film works because Forster's accomplished use of silence
allows tension to build and intimacy to persist in Thornton and Berry's realistic
performances. Forster's restraint and non-exploitative exploration of hot-button
issues is admirable. Now playing at Cinemark, this film is highly recommended with
the understanding that it's not for everyone.
Back to top
Life's
a Trip, Man
Surrealistic pillow.
By Lois
Wadsworth
WAKING LIFE: Written and directed
by Richard Linklater. Art Director, Bob Sabiston. Produced by Anne Walker-McBay,
Tommy Pallotta, Palmer West, Jonah Smith. Executive producers, Jonathan Sehring,
Caroline Kaplan, John Sloss. Editor, Sandra Adair. Music by Tosca Tango Orchestra.
Original score, Glover Gill. Starring Wiley Wiggins. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2001.
R. 97 minutes.
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| Wiley Wiggins on the path. |
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Waking Life is not unique in feature films (see Ralph Bakshi's
brilliant 1981 American Pop), but it's worthy of attention for its contemporary
dreamlike, expressionist images and for the challenge to conventional movie storytelling
it represents.
First, director Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and
Confused, Before Sunrise) wrote and directed a feature-length, live-action
movie that was shot and edited. In the can. Then Linklater and Art Director Bob Sabiston,
creator of the "interpolated rotoscoping" software used here, directed
a team of computer animators to digitally paint over the edited footage frame-by-frame.
The result is an ever-changing, uneven, episodic tale held together by the most fragile
plot line. The film is quite beautiful but rarely overtly realistic (The train leaving
the station is both gorgeous and concrete.)
Sixty characters, all but a few played by non-actors, express thoughts
about language, identity, science, dreams, life, death and art in at least 30 separate
episodes. Waking Life is a talking-heads head-trip. Not every character obsesses
over the subject of dreams vs. reality, but each one-sided conversation is, well,
trippy. In the opening sequence, a girl and a boy play a folded-paper, fortune-telling
game that ends with the girl (Linklater's daughter, Lorelei) reading the boy his
fate: "Dream is destiny." In Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke's bedroom scene,
they continue a conversation about reincarnation they might have begun in 1994 (Before
Sunrise): "I believe reincarnation is just a poetic expression of what collective
memory really is." Most of us don't have such conversations every day. Possibly
someone in an altered state would enjoy 97 minutes of unrelenting philosophizing,
but I wouldn't want to listen to some of these crack-pots with heightened awareness.
Linklater also taps into angry people who quote the founding fathers
or the bible to support their reactionary agenda. An armed man spouts, "A well-armed
populace is the best defense against tyranny," just before he kills; and an
angry man in jail warns, "Judge not lest ye be judged," while planning
to torture those who put him there. By leaving these nasty diatribes in the film
and giving equal attention to the speakers, Linklater diffuses the cumulative effect
of the more benign (if somewhat befuddled) characters' ideas about life as a dream,
film as dream, the epiphany of self-discovery, life's magical moments.
Wiley Wiggins plays a young man in a dream from which he can't
awaken. He listens to discourses on lucid dreaming, a technique by which you assert
your ego in a dream and ask, "Am I dreaming?" According to one character,
you can test dream vs. reality by turning off the lights if they're on, or vice versa.
If it works, you're in waking reality. If it doesn't, you're in a dream.
I have a problem with this idea. Its underlying conviction is that
only your personal, conscious ego experiences reality. But dreams speak a language
unique to the unconscious, an imagistic "voice" that can be understood
by the dreamer. The dream's larger, more inclusive viewpoint can help change an attitude,
modify a behavior or question a belief. This understanding of the psyche is at odds
with Linklater's.
And another thing: While some women characters talk about connection,
spirituality and human experience, the men characters talk about ideas. Many don't
see the beauty and fragility of the world right in front of them and the work we
all must do to help other people and the earth's bountiful creatures and diminishing
resources. For Wiley Wiggins to resolve his identity crisis, he must learn to feel,
but that's a different movie. Distinctly different, challenging and technologically
interesting, Waking Life opens at the Bijou on Friday, Feb. 15. Very highly
recommended.
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The
Imposter
Filmmaking revered.
By Lois
Wadsworth
CLOSE-UP (Iran, 1990): Written, directed
and edited by Abbas Kiarostami. With Hossain Sabizan, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazi
Ahankah, Mehrdad Ahankhah, Monoocher Ahankhah, Mahrokh Ahankhah, Nayer Mohseni Zanoozi
and Hossain Farazmand. Produced by Ali Reza Sarrin. Cinematography, Ali Reza Zarrindast.
Production manager, Hassan Agha Karimi. Sound, Ahmad Asgari, Mahammad Haghighi. (In
Farsi with English subtitles.) Farabi Cinema Foundation, 1990. NR. 93 minutes. DVD,
VHS (Facets Video). Available February 19.
 |
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| Filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf (front)
and Hossain Sabizan (back). |
|
Close-Up employs both documentary footage and reenactments
to tell the story of a man named Hossain Sabizan, who falls into a complicated true-life
predicament in which he passes himself off as the famous Iranian director, Mohsen
Makhmalbaf. Exactly how Sabizan finds himself in this pickle and what becomes of
him is the core material the real Makhmalbaf and his colleague Abbas Kiarostami examine
in Close-Up.
Sabizan is riding the bus one afternoon when the woman seated next
to him strikes up a conversation. She admires a book he's reading and mistakes him
for Makhmalbaf, the acclaimed film director. He says that's who he is. She says she
didn't think famous filmmakers rode the bus, but he says he's collecting material
for a new film. When she takes him home to meet the family her husband, two grown
sons and a daughter they are honored to have him in their home. And before long,
the impostor Sabizan has invited them to be in his new movie.
Viewers don't see this staged sequence until later in the film,
however. The film opens with a journalist and two policemen in a taxi going to the
home of a middle class family, the Ahankhahs. A man posing as a filmmaker is there,
the journalist says, and the father wants the police to take him away. The taxi driver
is frankly puzzled. Why would anyone want to pretend to be a filmmaker?, he asks.
But when the story breaks in the news magazine, Sorush, the real Makhmalbaf
reads it and persuades his friend Kiarostami to make a movie about it.
That's a brief digest of a multi-layered, subtle film that contains
many telling scenes in Sabizan's courtroom trial, which the director shoots with
three cameras. The close-up camera in particular captures Sabizan as a sensitive,
eloquent lover of film, a man so hungry for respect that he's unable to break the
bonds of deception.
Presiding over the trial is a magistrate of the Islamic Republic,
who consistently urges the opposing sides to reconcile. But the family feels deceived
(and embarrassed), and they are angry. So they accuse Sabizan of attempting to defraud
them. In his defense, Sabizan speaks very formally. He's well-read and surprisingly
urbane. But he admits that realizing when he left the Ahankhahs' home for his poor
home in the suburbs that he "was the same poor man who could not provide for
his family" and whose real place was "a lonely lot among the poor."
It's right about this time in the film when I felt torn between
wanting to believe Sabizan, yet also wanting to protect the Ahankhahs from their
own gullibility. That's just a delirious spot for someone who sees as many bad films
a year as I do, films in which I never care about even one character in the whole
film. Likewise, the filmmakers have some investment in Sabizan's story, or at least
in his love of film as art.
When Sabizan is released from prison, he walks out of the gate
only to be met by Makhmalbaf himself. This is the moment of truth, and it is something.
To learn what the impostor and the movie maker do next, you'll have to watch the
film. What you see may change the way you look at the world around you. The art of
Iranian cinema expressed here is unlike anything we have produced. Don't miss this
one at your video store next Tuesday.
[In this new film column I will review (1) selected movies or (2)
original series made for cable television as well as (3) films of note on DVD or
VHS that have not played in Eugene. That way when mainstream movies go to the dogs,
I'll still watch and review worthwhile movies, and you'll have recommendations about
alternatives.]
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OPENING
OR RETURNING:
Films open the Friday following date of EW publication unless
otherwise noted.
Basquiat: Basquiat crashed the '80s NY art scene but died before
the decade was out. Writer/director Julian Schnabel. Stars Jeffrey Wright, David
Bowie, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Benicio Del Toro. Gorgeous, bittersweet movie
with odd, gawky moments. R. At 8 pm on 2/15 in 180 PLC, UO. $2 student/$3
general. Shows with Downtown '81.
Crossroads: Britney Spears and two childhood friends hit
the road together and learn a lot about life. PG-13. Cinema World. Cinemark.
Cyclist, The (Iran, 1989): Directed by one of Iran's intensely
talented film directors, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who also stars in Abbas Kiarostami's
Close-Up, reviewed in this issue. He's internationally famous. At 7 pm on
2/21 in 180 PLC, UO. Free.
Downtown '81: Directed by Edo Bertoglio, film stars painter
Jean-Michel Basquiat At 8 pm on 2/15 in 180 PLC, UO. $2 student/$3 general. See Basquiat.
Hart's War: Drama set in WWII Nazi concentration camp involves
war hero Bruce Willis who commands his fellow inmates. A murder in camp leads to
a daring scheme. Film rides today's patriotism wave. R. Cinema World. Cinemark.
John Q: Denzel Washington, father of a boy who needs an
organ transplant, does desperate things. With Robert Duvall, James Woods, Anne Heche,
Kimberly Elise, Ray Liotta. PG-13. Cinemark. Cinema World.
Majestic, The: Jim Carrey, blacklisted H'wood writer loses
his memory but finds a new life in a 1950s small town. Directed by Frank Darabont
(The Green Mile). With Bob Balaban, Martin Landau and Laurie Holden. PG. Movies
12.
Night on Earth: Jim Jarmusch's five comic encounters between
cab drivers and passengers is one of my faves. Cast includes Gena Rowlands, Winona
Ryder, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Roberto Benigni, with
Tom Waits' music. Esposito and Perez's verbal hijinks is funny in any language. R.
At 7 Pm on 2/19 in 122 Pacific, UO. Free.
Not Another Teen Movie: Directed by MTV producer Joel Gallen,
high school comedy involves a bet a jock (Chris Evans) takes to turn a nerdy girl
(Chyler Leigh) into a prom queen. Duh! R. Movies 12.
Petrified Forest, The (1936): Based on Robert Sherwood's
play, this drama about patrons and workers at a roadside diner held captive by runaway
gangster stars Bette Davis, Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart. At 7 pm on 2/16 in
Lorane Grange Hall. $8 donation. (541) 767-0046.
Return to Neverland: Disney animated tale of the rebellious
12-year old daughter of grown up Wendy (from Peter Pan). Pete's still around,
and he tries to help her. G. Cinemark. Cinema World.
Super Troopers: Five Vermont State Troopers with not enough
to do create havoc on the highway. Written by and starring a five-man comedy troupe,
Broken Lizard. R. Cinema World. Cinemark.
Waking Life: Richard Linklater explores dreams vs reality
in 30 episodes. Film itself is a dream, the result of a live action film digitally
painted. Stars Wiley Wiggins and a cast of 60. R. Bijou. See review.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Robert Zemeckis directs this innovate
1988 live action/cartoon blend starring Bob Hoskins, the voice of Kathleen Turner
and a host of 'toon figures. Wonderful! PG. At 1:30 pm on 2/17 at the McDonald. $6/kids
3 and under free.
Zabriskie Point: Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 surreal saga
in the American desert stars Harrison Ford among others. Sam Shepard was one of the
writers. R. At 7 pm on 2/14 in 180 PLC, UO. Free.
CONTINUING
Amelie: Jean Pierre Jeunet's popular hit film about loneliness
in the city stars Audrey Tautou as a shy French pixie who meddles in the lives of
her Paris co-workers, family and neighbors. When she sees a man she likes, she realizes
she needs love. This little fairy tale has just enough gravity to stay grounded.
Worth seeing twice. Fabulous. Academy noms for foreign language film, art direction,
sound, cinematography, original screenplay. R. Bijou. See review.
Beautiful Mind, A: Inspired by the true story of a mathematical
genius whose great discovery came early in his career, Ron Howard's film stars Russell
Crowe, Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly. Crowe plays the man who battled his demons
for many years yet fulfilled his promise late in life. Stunning work by Crowe and
Connelly, both nominated for Academy Awards, along with the film, director Ron Howard,
writer Akiva Goldsman. Highly recommended. PG-13. Cinemark. See review.
Behind Enemy Lines: John Moore directs this military drama,
which has Gene Hackman as a naval officer and Owen Wilson as the hot dog pilot who
sees where the bodies are buried in a war-ravaged country. He's shot down, and some
soldiers are after him. PG-13. Movies 12.
Big Fat Liar: Frankie Muniz ("Malcolm in the Middle")
tries to prove sleazy Hollywood producer (Paul Giamatti) turned his class paper into
a hit movie. Directed by Shawn Levy. PG. Cinema World. Cinemark.
Black Hawk Down: Ridley Scott directs this true story based
on the mission-gone-wrong of American special forces in Somalia, 1993. Stars Josh
Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Ron Eldard and Sam Shepard. AFI award for best picture;
academy nods for Scott, cinematography, sound, editing. Highest recommendations.
R. Cinemark. See
review.
Black Knight: Martin Lawrence stars in Gil Junger's comedy
about a theme park called Medieval World with a portal that opens into England of
the 1300s. You know who crawls through and has to live by his wits. PG-13. Movies
12.
Collateral Damage: Andrew Davis's film about a firefighter
who loses his wife and son in a L.A. terrorist attack stars Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Elias Koteas, Francesca Neri, John Leguizamo and John Turturro. R. Cinemark. Cinema
World.
Count of Monte Cristo, The: Alexandre Duma's classic tale
of wrongful imprisonment and revenge stars Jim Caviezel, Dagmara Dominczyk, Guy Pearce
and Richard Harris. Scenes in prison are the film's best; much else is overblown.
PG-13. Cinemark. See
review.
Domestic Disturbance: John Travolta ex-wife's new husband
is a con man, and Travolta's 11-year old son watched him murder someone. With Vince
Vaughn. PG-13. Movies 12.
Gosford Park: Robert Altman's comedy of manners set upstairs
and downstairs in a 1932 English country house. Fine performances by Kristen Scott
Thomas, Jeremy Northam, Helen Mirren, Kelly Macdonald, Alan Bates, Emily Watson,
Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith. Splendid look at class warfare, with a nasty, satiric
edge. Academy Award noms to picture, Altman, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and screenwriter
Julian Fellowes. Highest recommendations. R. Bijou. See review.
How High: Rap superstars Redman and Method Man find some
really good smoke that helps them ace their college entrance exams. Yeah, right.
R. Movies 12.
I Am Sam: Sean Penn plays a mentally-challenged single parent
raising his daughter. Michelle Pfeiffer plays an attorney who takes his case when
the girl is put in foster care by social services. Extraordinary performance by Penn,
who received an Academy nod. PG-13. Cinemark.
Impostor: In a future world engineer/inventor Gary
Sinise is suspected of being an alien clone. Madeleine Stowe is his girlfriend. Directed
by Gary Fleder. PG-13. Movies 12.
joesomebody: John Pasquin directs Tim Allen as a divorced
father whose workplace humiliation in front of his daughter changes his life. With
Kelly Lynch, Jim Belushi, Julie Bowen, and Greg Germann. PG. Movies 12.
Life as a House: Irwin Winkler's tearjerker about an architect
(Kevin Kline) who learns he's dying. He asks his rebellious teenage son (Hayden Christensen)
and his estranged wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) to help him build a new house. R. Movies
12.
Lord of the Rings, The: The Fellowship of the Ring: The
first book in J. R. R. Tolkien's literary trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson and
shot entirely in New Zealand stars Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Liv
Tyler, Sean Astin, Christopher Lee. Highest recommendations. PG-13. Cinemark. Cinema
World. Academy Award noms: picture, director, McKellen, screenplay, original score,
song, art direction, cinematography, costumes, sound, visual effects, editing. See review.
Monster's Ball: Marc Forster's highly acclaimed, powerful
drama about a prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) who falls in love with the widow
(Halle Berry) of a recently executed Death Row convict. Filmed on location at infamous
Louisiana penitentiary in Angola, picture also stars Heath Ledger and Peter Boyle.
Academy nominations for Berry, screenplay. R. Cinemark. See review.
Mothman Prophecies: Richard Gere, Debra Messing, Laura Linney,
Will Patton and Alan Bates star in this tale of the supernatural based on events
chronicled in John A. Keel's book. PG-13. Cinemark.
Out Cold: Guys on snowboards. Comedy adventure flick stars
Jason London and a lot of other people you won't know. Snowboard champions perform
daring stunts. PG-13. Movies 12.
Rollerball: John McTiernan directs this action thriller
starring Chris Klein, LL Cool J and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as players that Rollerball
creator (Jean Reno) puts in danger on the court. PG-13. Cinema World. Cinemark.
Royal Tennenbaums, The: Directed by Wes Anderson (Rushmore),
this critically acclaimed film looks at a family of geniuses that's undergone two
decades of failure, betrayal and disaster. Gene Hackman is the family patriarch,
Royal; Angelica Huston plays his wife, Etheline. Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson and Gwyneth
Paltrow are their grown children. Also with Danny Glover, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson.
AFI Award: Hackman. Academy noms to Anderson and Wilson for screenplay Highest recommendations.
R. Cinemark. See
review.
Serendipity: Destiny has them meet by chance in a department
story, and fate parts them right away. Now it's 10 years later, and John Cusack and
Kate Beckinsale try to find each other again. Directed by Peter Chelsom (Town
& Country). PG-13. Movies 12.
Shallow Hal: Jack Black plays a neurotic womanizer who gets
hypnotized into seeing women's inner beauty for the Farrelly brothers. But he sees
right through Gwyneth Paltrow's fat suit. Word is the Farrellys are uncharacteristically
good humored. Hmmm. PG-13. Movies 12.
Snow Dogs: Brian Levant directs Cuba Gooding Jr. in this
Disney tale of a man who goes to Alaska to claim his inheritance a team of sled
dogs with their own minds. With James Coburn, M. Emmet Walsh and Graham Greene. PG.
Cinemark.
Spy Game: Robert Redford is a CIA officer who mentors Brad
Pitt in this spy thriller directed by Tony Scott (Enemy of the State). Also
stars Catherine McCormack. R. Movies 12.
Walk to Remember, A: Shane West and Mandy Moore star in
this adaptation of a best-seller. Directed by Adam Shankman. PG. Cinemark.
MOVIE
THEATERS
Use the links provided below for specific show times.
Bijou
Art Cinemas
Bijou Theater 686-2458 | 492 E. 13th
Regal
Cinemas
Cinema World 342-6536 | Valley River
Center
Springfield Quad 726-9073 |
Cinemark
Theaters
Movies 12 741-1231 | Gateway
Mall
Movies before 12:30 are Sat. Sun. only. $1.50 all shows all days.
Cinemark 17 741-1231 | Gateway Mall
NEW RELEASES
ON VIDEO:
Releases subject to change. Available the Tuesday following date of
EW publication, sometimes sooner:
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