Author: Village Vidiot

“This Is Spinal Tap,” July 15,  1999 (1984), video. Wow. This stands up sooooooooo well after all these years. A wonderful, goofy look at the fictional band. Great work by all, including Christopher Guest. A real secret pleasure. Even funnier when, while channel surfing, I stumbled across Howard Stern interviewing Iron Maiden with their one-armed…

‘The Thief,” 4 June 1999 (1997), dvd.  Well done, very painful Russian drama about a young woman who becomes involved with a thief. She and her son become pawns in his selfish game traveling the country and robbing. He uses them as a setup to ingratiate himself with others, worm his way into their confidence,…

  “The Opposite of Sex,” 10 April 1999 (1997), video.  Very smart, funny, unsettling, interesting, playful, well acted, and well written and directed film (John Roos) about a 16-year old girl (Christina Ricci) wise and cruel beyond her years, who leaves her Louisiana home and mother and journeys to live with and exploit her gay…

  “The General,” 4 April 1999  (1998), theater.    This is an interesting look at an Irish criminal, Martin Cahill, who stole over 60 million dollars worth of jewels, paintings, and materials in addition to private burglaries. A brutal man of ascetic tastes (he raises pigeons as a hobby), he marries one sister and beds…

“Henry Fool,” 27 February 1999 (1997), video.  Interesting, oddly humorous (often grossly so) and peculiar story of a young garbage-man transformed from tongue-tied sanitary engineer to Noble-laureate poet by a bizarre stranger who gets him to write. Well-acted piece by Hal Hartley. Owes more than a bow in style at first to “Eraserhead” but becomes…

“Love and Death on Long Island,” 26 February 1999 (1997), video.  Sly, witty and in the end, serious story of unrequited love. A reclusive and isolated British author and widower, Giles De’ath (hence the title) played by John Hurt, inadvertently goes into the wrong cinema and sees a young American actor (Jason Prilestly) in a…

  “Shakespeare In Love, 20 February 1999 (1998), theater  Very strong film with Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Rush (the man who can do anything in film!), and Judy Dench along with a fine supporting cast including Ben Affleck (the weakest of the bunch—its always a Yank). This is a lovely (if excessively complete and…

  “Happiness,” 21 November 1998, theater.    Very rough, good, occasionally funny and nasty dark comedy from the director of “Welcome to the Dollhouse”. The most dysfunctional family in town. Mother and father (Louise Lasser and Ben Gazarra) are divorcing, one daughter is a successful modern feminist poet who knows (feels) she’s a fraud. Her…

“The Sweet Hereafter,” 2 October 1998 (1997), video. Wonderful, painful, fascinating film by Atom Egoyan, starring Ian Holm and an excellent ensemble cast. A tragic bus accident kills many of the children of a small town, and a big city lawyer goes to the town to bring the victims parents into a lucrative class action…

“Ulee’s Gold,” 18 July 1998 (1997), video.   Interesting, stately piece for Peter Fonda to shine in. About a Vietnam-vet bee-keeper, his dysfunctional family, crime, and love. A nicely written, slow but well acted film. Both B+ and I enjoyed it.

  “Boogie Nights,” 12 June 1998 (1997), video.  Very well done, if rose colored, look at the porn industry of the 1970s and 80s with fine acting, especially by Burt Reynolds as a mephestophlian director, although the whole cast is really good. Marky Mark surprises and I always love William Macy. Glosses over the exploitation…

  “Female Perversions,” 28 March 1998, video.   This interesting but overblown and melodramatic look at female insecurity chronicles a tough, accomplished, and renowned woman lawyer and prosecutor (Tilda Swinton) through her work life and very active and very bisexual love life. Despite great success in the courtroom and her soon-to-be appointment as a judge, she…

  “Prince of Tides,” 1 January 1998, video.  This badly done Barbara Streisand vanity piece is a real embarrassment. Nick Nolte does well in several scenes, the story has some life as a gothic tale of southern depravity, and George Carlin as the gay neighbor is wonderful and really steals the show, but it is,…

“Prisoner of the Mountains,” 20 December 1997 (1996), video. Wonderful, powerful, Russian film about two soldiers captured by Caucasian peasants. One villager hopes to trade the Russians for his son, a prisoner of the Russians. Are they Chechen?. Who knows for sure. Still, this is a superb, loving, and very brave Russian film that should…

  “Ulysses Gaze,” drama, 19 December 1997 (1995), video.  Very stagy, and we thought, pretentious, 1995 Greek drama about life, death, history, and the perpetual crises of the Balkans. Bronwen and I were both bored by the film and shut it down after about 40 ponderous minutes. The thought of dealing with the remaining two-and…

  “The Whole Wide World,” drama, 13 December 1997 (1996), video. Well done, interesting, very under-rated and very touching dramatic presentation of the “true” story of Robert Thompson, the troubled young man who wrote Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonya novels in the 1930s. A love story, it chronicles the relationship he had with a…

  “Margaret’s Museum,” drama, 6 December 1997 (1995), video.  Very nice little Canadian film with Helena Bonham Carter playing a rather wacky Cape Breton girl who marries an ex-miner. Still, it’s a tad soft in the pacing and writing, and much is never explained. Very much the story of the women/widows and children of the…

    “Men in Black,” comedy, November 17, 1997, video.  What a shock, I really liked this tongue-in-cheek action-comedy about aliens on earth. Lots of good laughs, really funny, Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith are both quite fine, Tony Shaloub does a wonderful small bit, Vincent D’Norfrio is fun. The aliens are here among…

  “Crash,” drama, November 17, 1997 (1996), video.  Very weird, David Cronenberg film based on JG Ballard novel of the same name about sexual fetisihization of cars and car crashes. Well acted with Holly Hunter, James Spader, Elias Kotae, but very flat in style and presentation. Explicitly sexual, yet strangely detached and unerotic. Sex, death,…

  “Fargo,” September 17, 1997 (1996),  video.    Very funny, intelligent, scary look at a very bizarre multiple murder-kidnapping for hire tale from the Coen Brothers. Very much about the Midwest and Minnesota in particular. Fine work by all the actors, especially Steve Buscemi and Francis McDormand (an Oscar). Stylish, nasty, and fun. See this…

  “The Full Monty,” comedy, September 17, 1997, theater  Very funny, good film about 6 English steelworkers who lose their jobs in downsizing and the death of their trade in Sheffield. They turn to stripping in a wonderful little film that looks at male views of their own bodies, sex, age, race, class, gender, and…

“Booty Call,” comedy, September 17, 1997, video.    This very funny, crude black date comedy really is worth seeing despite its reliance on sex and poop jokes. A good run at self-criticism by African-American comics.

“L.A. Confidential,” 14 December 1997, theater. Good but very violent cop drama in neo-noir style about the unseen corruption in the city of the angels. Well acted with very nice work by Kevin Spacey and a cast of lesser known and very talented character actors. Good work by Kim Bassinger. The plot follows on a…

   “The People vs. Larry Flint,” biography, August 10, 1997 (1996), video.   Funny but problematic piece about Flint, the Hustler publisher. Woody Harrelson is good and Courtney Love as his wife Althea is even better. I just found I couldn’t believe the lawyer, the shift to Flint as true believer in the First Amendment, and…

“Ridicule,” drama, July 15, 1997, video, home. Wonderful French film about life in Louis the XVI’s court over issue of wit and verbal sparring as key to success. Sense of emptiness of the verbal as sport as young doctor goes to court to try to save his town from disease caused by the mosquitoes in…