A Flurry of Holiday Films
By Scott FoundasFilm Editor
`Twas the month
before Christmas--and in Hollywood terms that means that thoughts of
sugar-coated holiday box-office dollars and candied end-of-the-year
statuettes are dancing like sugar plums in the heads of producers,
directors and studio executives everywhere. Between now and the end of the
year, Tinsel Town plans to unleash nearly 50 feature films on an eager and
unsuspecting public, hoping for both critical and commercial success at
this most crucial of moviegoing seasons.What follows is a critical
summary of those films opening before the year's end that were made
available for preview prior to press time. Be aware that the film industry
is fickle by nature, and as more and more films jockey for the same opening
dates, release schedules are subject to change.Woody Allen's "Everyone
Says I Love You," the writer-director's first foray into the realm of the
musical comedy, is by turns Woody's most ambitious movie and one of his
worst. Overall, this episodic chronicle of the loves and losses of an
upscale Manhattan family is the Woodman's slightest and least successful
feature since "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were
Afraid to Ask)" nearly 25 years ago. Allen struggles to find a central
focus (but never succeeds) amidst much singing, dancing and other frivolous
trappings of the genre. It's as though Woody wanted to make a musical just
for the sake of making one and let all other concerns about story and
character fall by the wayside in the process."Everyone Says I Love You"
isn't a complete misfire, though. Much of it, in fact, is quite charming,
and in the eyes of this critic Allen may well be incapable of making a
thoroughly bad film, but "Everyone Says I Love You" disappoints in at least
one of the key areas where Allen is usually the most successful. The movie
simply isn't very funny, and the jokes that do work seem overly familiar.
Plus, the movie is played for laughs (this isn't one of Woody's more
introspective, Bergman-esque chamber pieces), though it never comes close
to eliciting so many as last year's flawed and equally frothy "Mighty
Aphrodite."As for the production
numbers, a couple of them (right at the beginning and end of the film) work
very well in paying homage to the lavish MGM studio pictures of old, but
most of the rest seem forced and poorly staged, as if Woody were trying to
adapt his intimate, master shot-laden, slow-zoom style to this completely
incongruous aesthetic. That's not to say that a musical has to have
sweeping crane shots in every scene, but Woody can't seem to find the right
approach, and the film pales in comparison to the great Jacques Rivette's
"Haus Bas Fragile" from earlier this year--very similar in intent,
but ending up as a textbook example of how to make a minimalist
musical.The cast is solid as
always, and newcomer Edward Norton handles the brunt of the songs with
great facility. He deserves special mention as this year's true
breakthrough star, landing major roles for major directors in three big
movies (including this and Milos Forman's "The People vs. Larry Flynt").
Norton has met these challenges with standout performances and an
Oscar-worthy turn in Gregory Hoblit's "Primal Fear." Drew Barrymore is also
surprisingly good, though the half-baked romantic subplot between her
character and escaped convict Tim Roth falls very flat, while Natalie
Portman ("The Professional") continues to impress as a younger sibling.In terms of scope,
"Everyone Says I Love You" may be Allen's biggest project, with tons of
extras and lots of shooting throughout such exotic locations as Paris and
Venice. This movie may have fewer scenes shot in New York than any other
Allen film, but that doesn't seem important in light of the fact that the
film is never compelling enough on a visual or narrative level. Woody is still so talented
that even a mediocre entry like this seems pretty good in the grand scheme
of things, but his fans know that he is capable of greater things. This fan
in particular has one major piece of advice: stay away from the digital
effects, Woody. The singing and dancing computer-generated ghosts that pop
up during a calypso-style number set in a funeral parlor look cheap and
nearly indistinguishable. This is the sort of technical innovation we don't
need in a Woody Allen movie, and the kind of idea best left unused should
Tim Burton ever decide to make a sequel to "Beetlejuice." C"Everyone Says I Love You" opens exclusively at the AMC 14 in Century City and Laemelle's Sunset 5 in Hollywood.
Dec. 20We've seen enough films
directed by the great Claude Chabrol to have a sense of where "La
Crmonie" is headed well before it reaches its conclusion. Why,
then, do the final moments of this great film still seem so shocking and
unexpected? It can only be because Chabrol is one of the last true masters
of the cinema, and he can make us jump with fright with an ease that few
directors other than Hitchcock have known."La Crmonie" is
stunning, disturbing, intense and everything else we expect from Chabrol,
and it features the brilliant Sandrine Bonnaire in what just might be the
finest performance by any actress in any movie this year. She's perfectly
stone-faced as the na•ve young housekeeper who comes to work in the home of
a bourgeois French couple (Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Cassel), yet
we always feel privy to the workings of the mind that is much more complex
and sinister than her meager appearance lets on. Also, Isabelle Huppert
continues to prove herself as an actress of inimitable range, seeming
effortlessly sleazy and uncouth as the local postal worker who quickly
forms an obsessive bond with Bonnaire.Like few films today,
"La Crmonie" creates and maintains a level of suspense so heightened
that you find yourself sutured into the action of the story without a
moment's respite to think of anything else. It is only in the final moments
of the story that any event of any significance takes place, but there's a
hypnotic tension in every moment leading up to the climax, because we sense
that something is about to happen around every corner, though we are never
exactly sure what that something is.After more than 30 years of
directing films, beginning during the French New Wave and never losing
sight of it, Chabrol has yet again fashioned a masterpiece that taps into
our deepest notions of fear, jealousy and betrayal, while poking satirical
fun at the everyday lives of the privileged classes. It is a perfection
piece in a career that has included many. A"La Crmonie" opens exclusively at the Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion 3 in Los Feliz.
"Mother" is less ambitious
and inventive, but it is equally infectious in relating the adventures
science-fiction writer John Henderson (Brooks), recently divorced (for the
third time) and finding himself in the throes of a writer's-block-ridden
mid-life crisis. The only solution seems to be for John to move back in
with his mother Beatrice (Debbie Reynolds) in an attempt to find out how
his relationship with Mom has cursed his relationships with the women in
his life.Of course, this scenario
provides the perfect setup for Brooks' shtick, and no sooner does he arrive
home than he and Reynolds engage in a riotous debate over the merits of the
food in her refrigerator as compared with the Los Angeles health
food-crazed lifestyle of Brooks' character. Most of what follows is the
interaction between Brooks and Reynolds, and it is as rare that two actors
are placed exclusively with nearly all the scenes in a movie as it is that
two actors should have the remarkable chemistry between them that Brooks
and Reynolds do here. True, Brooks auditioned others for the role (Doris
Day, Esther Williams and Nancy Reagan were among those mentioned), but he
could have made no better choice than Reynolds. The woman once known as
America's sweetheart has now become America's mom.Reynolds is key to the
success of the film because she comes across as warm and loving, yet not
entirely understanding of her own son. She immediately seems as though she
could be anybody's mother, not just Brooks'. Also, despite reports to the
contrary, "Mother" isn't really a kinder and gentler side to the sardonic
Brooks, as the film does ask some very difficult questions about the
dynamic between mothers and sons and the dangers of suppressing certain
aspects of our pasts.Brooks' screenplay
(co-written with longtime collaborator Monica Johnson) is smart and right
on the money, and it's greatly refreshing to see a comedy where all of the
jokes hit their marks in a year that has brought very few such films.
B+"Mother" will open nationwide.
Dec. 25Christmas Day this year
brings Dan Ireland's "The Whole Wide World," which plays like
exactly the kind of film the word "nice" was invented for. This period
romance, which recounts the love affair between "Conan the Barbarian"
creator Robert E. Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio) and schoolteacher Novalyne
Price (Renee Zellweger), is beautifully photographed (by Claudio Rocha) and
entirely inoffensive, but there's something so ordinary about it that it
truly is confounding.There's little discernible
reason, in fact, why this movie was even made. All of the potentially
interesting material that pokes its nose through the surface of the story
seems to get relegated to the sidelines no sooner than it appears. For
example, we never find out enough about Howard's strained relationship with
his father or his unusually close attachment to his mother. Howard's
unstable psychological state is also hinted at but never dealt with,
leaving the film's tragic finale feeling like something of an aloof
coda.D'Onofrio, however, gives a
gutsy and spirited performance as Howard, often spontaneously breaking into
recitations of the character's prose with tremendous zeal and conviction.
It's a shame the film also doesn't explore his literary work as much as it
should. Zellweger, though, is also strong as Price, and it doesn't take
much to fall in love with this beautiful young star who also stars in this
fall's "Jerry Maguire."There's a certain
connective tissue missing in "The Whole Wide World," which leaves the
audience wondering what all the fuss was about. Ireland never quite bridges
the gap between his sentimental love story and the vaguely inferred broader
implications of his tale as a metaphor for all the world's half-crazed,
impulsive geniuses. "The Whole Wide World" is something of a tribute to the
passionate daydreamer in all of us, just enough to resonate with the
audience, if not quite to overcome a certain inherent mediocrity.
C"The Whole Wide World" will open in limited release.