Author: Village Vidiot

“Pollock,” August 15 2001 (2000), video, home. Wonderfully acted look at Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner starring Ed Harris. He seems to have the painter’s surly, non-verbal pain and alcoholism down perfectly. He also has clearly studied Pollack’s unique and exciting painting style. This is a depressing film. Marcia Gay Harden’s Krasner seems nicer than…

“The Perfect Storm,” July 17, 2001, video.  Well-made. and well-acted blockbuster with good acting from George Clooney and a fine supporting cast about the fishermen lost during the huge storm of 1991. Scary stuff, good on the work of fishing. Would play better on the big screen

  “Traffic,” July 17 2001 (2000), video.  Very interesting, rough film about the drug trade. Well done in some settings, less well in others. The parts played in Mexico and San Diego are really cool. The other pieces shot in Cincinnati are less interesting. Michael Douglas is, once again, rather boring and overly sincere as…

Yucky, confused comedy about religion with a fine cast, all of whom spout scads of platitudes about the Catholic Church, God, religion, and lots of other stuff. By the guy who did “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy”. The first had the wild craziness of the slacker, the second was cool and weird but then became sentimental….

  “Twilight: Los Angeles,” April 17, 2001 (2000), tv (PBS) production of play.    This is a marvelous one-woman production by Anna Devere Smith. It looks at the aftermath of the Rodney King trial and riots in LA. She does all the characters: African-American, Chicano, Korean, Euro-American. Not always kind, it is nonetheless insightful and…

“Not One Less,” April 17, 2001, video.  Superb Chinese film from Zhang Yimou about a 13-year old substitute school teacher in a poor rural Chinese village. When one of her students leaves school and goes to the city to earn money to pay his family debts, she follows him in and hunts him down. The…

  “The Limey,” 27 January 2001 (1999), video.  Very good film by Steven Sodderberg about a British ex-con trying to figure out and avenge his daughter’s murder. Fine acting and production by Terrence Stamp and Peter Fonda. Set in LA. Wonderful, creative use of old clips of Stamp from his first film “Poor Cow” by…

  “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” 19 January 2001 (2000), theater.    We enjoyed this more serious martial arts film starring Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeow. It had some silliness about people flying or walking on water based on their martial arts training, sort of like Peter Pan meets Bruce Lee, but it was well…

  “High Fidelity,” December 17, 2000, video.  This quirky and very playful John Cusak vehicle looks at the life of the owner of a vinyl music store in Chicago. Good tunes as it chronicles his relentless failures in love. The people who patronize and work in the store are priceless, the women are great (Lily…

“The Rugrats in Paris,” November 17, 2000, theater.  Not as good as the first Rugrats movie, this one is sweeter and less tense. Also, much less well developed transitions between the scenes. Better for the kid, though. We ate way too much popcorn and drank too much root beer. Fun to see with her.

  “Boys Don’t Cry,” October 17, 2000 (1999), video.  Very well acted story of Teena Brandon, aka Brandon Teena, a ftm ts in the Great Plains region. A bad end to be sure. Wonderfully acted, especially by Hillary Swank as Brandon (an Oscar) and Chloe Sevingny as her girl friend. But from what I’ve heard,…

  “Sweet and Lowdown,” September 17,  2000 (1999), video   Very good Woody Allen film starring Sean Penn as Emmett Ray, the fictional second best jazz guitarist of the 1930s. Always chasing the image of Django Reinhart, he struggles against himself, women, and life. Success is followed by his simply falling from view. This is a…

“The Cider House Rules,” September 17, 2000, video.  Overrated film based on John Irving novel about an orphanage, an orphan, his mentor the doctor/abortionist well played by Michael Caine, and apple picking in the 1940s A good but not a great movie. I much preferred the novel although it also was about 100 pages too…

“Topsy-Turvy,” July 17, 2000, theater.  Mike Leigh’s tribute to the trivialities of Gilbert and Sullivan. Well acted and sometimes painful to watch, it is rich and wonderful. To think this improvised is quite amazing and a true tribute to director and actors. The subject is so small and meaningless but so wonderful and rich. Quite…

  “All About Eve,” May 2000 (1950), video.  What with all the references from “All About My Mother,” we had to see this wonderful, quick-witted, well-acted Mankiewicz tour de force about a young woman, Eve Harrington, scheming and manipulating people to get to the top. Bette Davis is astounding as the aging (40s) star of…

  “All About My Mother,” May 17 2000 (1999), theater, Spanish, subtitled.  Nice to see director Pedro Almodovar finally hit it again.  A very well-crafted film that only occasionallyslips into melodrama but avoids both the boring soap-operaish aspects, the over-the-top silliness, and the in-your-face- shock theatrics of his earlier pictures without changing t“conventional” characters.  The…

“The Dreamlife of Angles,” April 30 2000, video, French, subtitled  Very good film about two young girls who come, by chance, to know one another. They move in together and begin to share lives. They become involved with some very interesting bikers and one takes up with a middle-class user of women who twists her…

  “Three Kings,” 24 April 2000, video.    Very good action flick about four US soldiers going after the gold stolen from Kuwait by Sadamm Hussein during the Gulf War. Good work by George Clooney, Ice Cube, Marc Wahlberg, and Spike Joynz. Good critique of US policy and Bush. Fine camera work, interesting weirdness about…

  “Blue Streak,” 27 February 2000 (1999), video.    This Martin Lawrence action comedy had a great premise but it fails utterly to pull it off. ML plays a jewel thief who gets out of jail after a robbery gone terribly wrong and wants to find the loot only to discover he stashed it in…

“Jerry Maguire,” 24 February 2000 (1996),  video.  Unsatisfying Tom Cruise piece with fine work by Cuba Gooding. The film looks at a sports agent who comes to hate himself for the bullshit of his work. Disgusted, he dashes off a manifesto about the job and, shock of shocks, is fired. One admiring accountant (Renee Zelwenger—boy…

  “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” 19 February 2000, video.  Well, I got shagged again watching this flat, lame James Bond spoof from Mike Myers.  Another flaccid comedy.  A couple of cute parts about Dr. Evil and his son, and the flying phallic space ship, but it was largely a waste of time. …

  “A Walk on the Moon,” October 17, 1999 (1999), video.    Very good and underrated drama about a young mother’s affair with a blouse salesman during summer 1969 at a lower-middle class Catskillls resort. Fun soundtrack, thoughtful humane dealing with the problematics of liberation and responsibility. Well worth seeing. Set in the context of…

   “The Buena Vista Social Club,” September 1999, theater.  Wim Wender documentary about Ry Cooder’s rediscovery of Cuba’s “son” musicians. He reunites them, brings them out, and reopens all their careers. The music is great, the film leaves some important gaps unalalyzed: why did they fall from favor and disappear in the 1970s? Politics? Aesthetics?…

“The Celebration,” September 17, 1999 (1998), video.  Very good, very intense, dark, dark Danish comic drama about an intensely dysfunctional family. A birthday party for the pater familias. falls apart when one of the children speaks truth to power and unveils the family’s dirty secrets. A fascinating, often perversely funny, family and national drama, including…

  “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,”  September 10, 1999 (1998),video.   Ok UK crime comedy, not the madcap romp it was touted as, but interesting for me. Bronwen was bored and fell asleep. Several guys get deep into debt when their rep is cheated at cards by the city thug. They plot a robbery to…