Author: Village Vidiot

“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…

“In and Out,” May 17, 1998, video.  Sometimes funny film about a gay teacher, Kevin Kline, coming out to the community and himself even while he is about to get married. Overrated comedy with a few very nice touches as the community comes to support him.

“Eugene Kabileh, A Photographer for Stalin,” 2 April 1998, video.  Screened for Jewish Film Festival. Very interesting interview biography with famous Soviet photographer who took pictures in WWII and post-war years. Jewish communist, a true believer, he nonetheless experienced acute discrimination due to Soviet anti-Semitism. Oddly, it ends in 1972 with his firing from Pravda…

  “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…

“Groundhog Day,” 28 February 1998, video.  Old Bill Murray film that’s charming. I very much enjoyed this third (or is it the fourth?) viewing.  In the “It’s a Wonderful Life” tradition.  Bill Murray plays an arrogant tv-weatherman who goes to Puxatawny, Pennsylvania to cover the groundhog ceremonies. Gets caught in a time loop and learns…

“The Pillow Book,” 22 February 1998 (1996), video.  Strangely dispassionate film about a woman’s passionate relationship to sexuality and literature. Creative multi-screen use of the film (a bit hard to see on tv but it would work well in the theater). About a Japanese woman’s attempt to revenge her father and create her own pillow…

“When the Cat’s Away,” 13 February 1998 (1996), video.  Sort of interesting little French film about a woman whose cat gets lost while she’s away on vacation. Her search for her cat corresponds to her searching for a life. The neighborhood provides what the glam world of models and makeup doesn’t. An ok, and sometimes…

“Little Man Tate,” 4 January 1998, video.  Nice, well constructed older movie by Jodie Foster with good work by all the actors including Foster, Diane Weist, David Pearce, Harry Connick, Jr, Debbie Mazur, and others. Painful in parts, it looks at a genius child born to a single-mother waitress. So funny to see such a…

  “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,…

“The English Patient,” 31 December 1997, video.  See this one on a big screen for its beauty, and that is substantial, but that said, it didn’t move either Bronwen or me, and she’s a big fan of the author. The film looks at the life of a burn patient found in the desert during WWII,…

“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,…

  “Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery,” comedy, November 17, 1997, video.  The mystery is, why did everyone like this silly bit of fluff so much. Even as a comedy, this Mike Myers conceit is overly long, thin, rather boring, and dumb as a parody/homage to 1960s/70s James Bond, secret agent, Man from UNCLE movies…

“A Family Thing,” November 17, 1997 (1996), video.  Nice little film about race, virtues, etc, but not as good as many reviewers said. With good work by Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones, it still has the moralistic and predictable feel of a made for tv movie, which it was. For HBO.

  “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.

  “Cold Fever,” drama, September 1997 (1995), video.    This excellent and very strange Icelandic film looks at a Japanese businessman who goes to Iceland to perform a religious ritual for his parents but discovers much about himself and the world in the process. Very nasty vision of some American thug/hitchhikers played wonderfully by Lily…

“Copland,” drama, August 15, 1997, theater.  Sylvester Stallone acts and does a good job as the slob cop who nonetheless has some scruples. Set up in a small NJ town to be a fake cop by cop-boss Harvey Keitel, Sly comes through in the end and is standup along with Robert DeNiro as the NYPD-DIA…

“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…