Village Vidiot

“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…

“Box of Moonlight,” 27 November 1998 (1996), video.  Nice, occasionally funny if predictable mid-life crisis film about an electrical engineer (John Tuturro) whose behavior has made him boring to all those around him. He finally learns to relax a bit as a result of some crazy young folk he meets on his trip home from…

  “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…

“Elizabeth,” 22 November 1998, theater.  Lush, well-acted costume drama about Elizabeth I and her rise to the throne. Kate Blanchett as Elizabeth is fine and Geoffrey Rush as Walshingham, her guardian spook is superb. The rest of the cast is very good.  It is a very cerebral film and is not emotionally engaging. It is…

“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…

“Ponnette,” 1 August 1998, video.  Lovely film about a little girl trying to cope with her mother’s death. French with subtitles. Remarkable acting from the four-year old star. Well done but very sad. Excessively melodramatic, neat ending but otherwise fine.

“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…