A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
'The Parent Trap'
'Paragraph 175'
'Payback'
'The Peacemaker'
'The People vs Larry Flynt'
'A Perfect Murder'
'Phenomenon'
'Persuasion'
'The Pillow Book'
'Playing by Heart
'Play It to the Bone'
'Pleasantville'
'Plunkett and Macleane'
'Pocahontas'
'A Price Above Rubies'
'Primary Colors'
'The Prince of Egypt'
'Princess Mononoke'
'Psycho'
'Punitive Damage'
'Pushing Tin'
'The Parent Trap' (8/3/98)
Directed by Nancy Meyers
Starring Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid
Women and preteen girls still love the 1961 "The Parent Trap," starring Hayley Mills as identical twins. Raised separately by their divorced parents, the twins meet by chance at summer camp and scheme to reunite their mom and dad. This affectionate update, directed by Nancy Meyers, retains the fantasy but gives everything else a stylish makeover. A winning newcomer, Lindsay Lohan, plays the twins with zest. She makes it clear that the twins' plight has more pathos to it than the original permitted. "I hope she likes me. Please like me," prays Hallie, on her way to meet the mother she's never known. As the parents, Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid look gorgeous but leave it at that. This film has everything for the all-important female audience: feisty heroines, lots of slapstick, great clothes. (on video)
LAURA SHAPIRO and CORIE BROWN
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'Paragraph 175' (9/14/00)
Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Narrated by Rupert Everett
We all have favorite paragraphs, some from novels, some from family folklore. Certain paragraphs intone inalienable rights ("We hold these truths to be self evident....), others take rights away. Paragraph 175 from the German Penal code of 1871, long ignored in the free-spirited atmosphere of pre-Nazi Berlin, was conveniently resurrected by The Third Reich when the government decided homosexuals were not to be a part of Germany's future.The paragraph reads, "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed."
If ever there was "a loss of civil rights," the concentration camps were it. Along with millions of Jews and thousands of gypsies, dissidents, and other undesirables, approximately 10,000 to 15,000 homosexuals were sent to the camps. Most of the died. "Paragraph 175" is the intimate story of a handful of survivors interviewed over a two year period by filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the documentary team behind other prize-winning gay-themed films, "The Celluloid Closet" and "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt." Epstein also directed the Oscar winning portrait "The Times of Harvey Milk" about the slain San Francisco politician.
Epstein and Friedman begin their film with historical footage from Weimar Berlin. Scenes of men laughing and dancing with men dissolve to shots of women embracing women in same-sex bars with names like The Owl, The Olivia, and Eldorado. Little attention was paid to Hitler's gang of thugs, slowly gaining muscle in German outposts far from Berlin. The innocence of those days becomes a distant dreamscape as the present-day camera focuses on five men and one woman recounting their lives under the Nazi siege.
What sets "Paragraph 175" apart from other Holocaust films is the gentle intensity of these survivors. The horror of their experience is written in the lines on their faces and in the tears that flow readily as they speak. We are spared images of emaciated bodies and heaps of corpses; but we are not excused from the unspeakably sad emotions before us. We sit in silent sympathy for Gad Beck who tried to save his lover, Manfred, from the Gestapo; Manfred wouldn't abandon his doomed family. Then there is the now-toothless Pierre Seel, who was raped with wooden planks at the internment camp at Schirmeck and the 93-year-old Heinz F., with his piercing blue eyes, who was sent to Dachau and then to other camps for nearly nine years and only now is speaking of his experiences for the first time.
Filmed on Digital Video and transferred to 35mm for theatrical release, "Paragraph 175" is as beautiful and sharp in its colors and editing as it is tragic in its content. Fragments of Sibelius, Mahler, and Wagner drift into a haunting, original score by Tibor Szemz¨. The narration by Rupert Everett matches the gravity of the music.
As their body of work grows, Epstein and Friedman are re-writing social history through documentary film: placing the marginalized center stage where their stories can be heard loud and clear.
MICHAEL RUSH
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'Payback' (2/15/99)
Directed by Brian Helgeland
Starring Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry
Let's ruin the ending: Mel Gibson kills just about everyone. It seems that Porter (Gibson) went to the trouble of stealing $70,000, and then somebody stole it from him. Now he's taking on the Syndicate. Brian Helgeland, who wrote "L.A. Confidential," makes his directorial debut here with a mixed bag of retro noir and '90s sadism. What sticks in the mind is the sharp banter and the supporting cast of lowlifes. Lucy Liu is great fun as an S&M freak — though you've got to wonder if a woman who likes being beaten up is just Hollywood's latest excuse for beating a woman up. "Payback" may not always be P.C., but it's not interested in making friends, anyway. Just killing enemies.
JEFF GILES
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'The Peacemaker' (9/29/97)
Directed by Mimi Leder
Starring George Clooney, Nicole Kidman
Nuclear scientist Nicole Kidman and army intelligence officer George Clooney put aside their temperamental differences to save the world from a terrorist with a nuke. That, in a nutshell, describes the globe-hopping action-thriller "The Peacemaker," the first release from the much-ballyhooed DreamWorks. No one will accuse it of breaking the mold with this one, though director Mimi Leder fills the mindless-action-movie quota quite stylishly. The trouble is, "The Peacemaker" thinks it has a mind. It's the first studio movie to touch upon the war in Bosnia, but it does this so meretriciously that you wish it had stuck to fantasy. You don't cast Nicole Kidman as a nuclear scientist and then expect the audience to furrow its brow over world events. Where's mindlessness when we really need it? (on video)
DAVID ANSEN
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'The People vs Larry Flynt' (12/23/96)
Directed by Milos Forman
Starring Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love
He's the least likely man to be the hero of a big-budget Hollywood Christmas movie. Yet here he is, wonderfully incarnated by Woody Harrelson, as the title character of "The People vs. Larry Flynt," a brave, spectacularly entertaining — and unexpectedly stirring — account of Flynt's life that asks us to regard the publisher of Hustler magazine as an invaluable champion of our First Amendment freedoms. Milos Forman's film is both provocation and anomaly; Flynt was no angel, and the film never pretends otherwise. Courtney Love's performance as stripper Althea Leasure is an amazement. Funny, unfettered and almost scarily alive in front of a camera, she's the definition of a "natural." In much the same way that Althea inspires Larry (the sexual and entrepreneurial impulses seem interlocked in the guy), Love's quicksilver presence seems to coax out of Harrelson his most robust performance. Alternately charming and obnoxious, shrewd and irrational, his Flynt fascinates, appalls and disarms us. (on video)
DAVID ANSEN (with Yahlin Chang)
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'A Perfect Murder' (6/15/98)
In this suspense thriller, Gwyneth Paltrow, a rich heiress, is having an affair with impoverished artist Viggo Mortensen, which husband Michael Douglas, a Gordon Gekko-like commodities trader, discovers. But when he confronts Mortensen, it's with an unexpected offer: he'll give his wife's lover $400,000 — to murder her. This is the first of many twists in this loose remake of "Dial M for Murder." But all the surprises strenuously cooked up by screenwriter Patrick Smith Kelly and director Andrew ("The Fugitive") Davis can't overcome the movie's inability to make us care about any of its paper-thin characters. Between them, the three stars don't generate enough heat to warm your pinkies. The real energy in this slick, handsomely mounted production seems to have gone into the interior decoration. Closer to Architectural Digest than Alfred Hitchcock, "A Perfect Murder" would have been more aptly titled "Lifestyles of the Rich and Murderous." (on video)
'Phenomenon' (7/4/96)
It's no coincidence that the name of Phenomenon's hero, George Malley, sounds a lot like George Bailey, the hero of "It's a Wonderful Life." "Phenomenon" aims to be a kind of New Age Capra movie. On his 37th birthday, George (John Travolta), a sweet, single, well-liked auto mechanic in the town of Harmon, wanders into the street from his birthday party and is struck by a mysterious bolt of light. Afterwards, he's transformed. Suddenly, this formerly simple guy is speaking Spanish, reading three books a day — he's even possessed of telekinetic powers, which he modestly shows off to his dumbfounded pal Nate (Forest Whitaker). But through it all, George remains the same swell, selfless guy. Soft to the point of squishiness, "Phenomenon" is rescued from terminal bathos by Travolta's radiant conviction. (on video)
'Persuasion' (10/9/95)
A comedy tinged with melancholy and the ache of missed opportunities, based on Jane Austen's last, posthumously published novel. An exquisite ensemble of actors have subtly but brilliantly refurbishes the conventions of the costume drama. Austen's heroine, Anne Elliot (Amanda Root), faces spinsterhood at the age of 27, having been persuaded to reject the proposal of the man she loved — and still loves. Her trusted friend Lady Russell (Susan Fleetwood) deemed him unsuitable, owing to his lack of fortune. By the time it's reached full bloom, you may find yourself in an unreasonably happy state. (on video)
'The Pillow Book' (6/23/97)
No contemporary filmmaker is more adept at documenting obsession than Peter Greenaway, and not since "The Draughtsman's Contract" has he found such compelling subject matter. "The Pillow Book" — the movie takes its name from the traditional Japanese practice of keeping a diary in one's pillow — explores the relationship between writing and eroticism, in which the body itself becomes a book. Nagiko, the protagonist, is a beautiful young woman with an unusual obsession. When she was younger, her father would inscribe a poem on her body in calligraphy and now, as an adult, she seeks only lovers who are also fine calligraphers, so that she can achieve sexual fulfillment as they write beautifully upon her beautiful body. Greenaway uses the screen rather like the calligraphers of the story use the body so that the film becomes a kind of visual "pillow book;" a multi-layered series of inscriptions and reflections with almost hypnotic power. (on video)
'Playing by Heart' (1/25/99)
They're rich, they're good-looking, they live in big houses in L.A. and they have great interior decorators. And they talk and talk and talk about love. The 11 characters, who pop up in half a dozen intersecting love stories, are played by a high-profile cast, including Gena Rowlands, Sean Connery, Dennis Quaid, Gillian Anderson and Angelina Jolie. They seem to be having a terrific time getting in or out of romances. First-time director Willard Carroll is also a talented writer who tries to avoid clichés, but doesn't always succeed. His dialogue is sometimes poetic but often predictable and slick. Revelations come sliding out as orderly and well timed as if this were the Ice Capades. If only love were always this well organized.
'Play It to the Bone' (1/14/00)
The idea of Antonio Banderas and Woody Harrelson playing two boxers driving to Vegas to fulfill their dreams conjures up visions of an exciting adventure. Add the director of "Bull Durham" to the mix and you have a sure-fire winner. Or do you? Unfortunately writer/director Ron Shelton's 'Play It to the Bone' is a half-hearted comedy whose jokes are far from a knockout. The yarn begins when washed-up fighters Caesar Dominguez and Vince Boudreau (Banderas and Harrelson), get a call from a Vegas promoter who's desperate for some last-minute fill-ins for a fight on the undercard before that night's Tyson match. The catch? The friends must fight each other. Neither one has a car, so they enlist Caesar's girlfriend,Grace (Lolita Davidovitch) to drive them.
What should be a mad dash filled with twists and turns is instead painfully slow and almost tedious. The action speeds up, however, when the trio picks up Lia (Lucy Liu), a pick-pocketing, sex-obsessed hitchhiker, who creates some desperately needed tension in the movie. Lia brings things to a boil by ramping up the sexual energy, annoying Grace and fueling a feud among the pals. The two do finally make it to the match, and soon the friends are throwing punches to the head. If the action was slow before, the last minutes of the film will keep you on the edge of your seat—if only in shock at the torrents of blood gushing from the protagonists' faces. The fight ends a draw, and the three end up back in the car, battered and bruised, but together.
'Pleasantville' (10/19/98)
Pleasantville is the title of a 1950s sitcom on one of those classic rerun channels. David Wagner (Tobey Maguire) is hooked on its black-and-white blandness as an escape from his super-dysfunctional family. One day David and his sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are mysteriously zapped through the TV screen into Pleasantville. In this world where the temperature is always 72 degrees, Mom and Dad (Joan Allen, William H. Macy) never stop smiling and never have sex, the two '90s kids disrupt the sterile sitcom utopia. Color creeps into the black-and-white world, tinting and tainting the town with desire, jealousy, fear. It's an Edenic allegory, the colors signaling a loss of innocence but the onset of true human experience. Writer-director Gary Ross ("Big") has made a complex, entertaining film that may have more ideas than it can handle, but certainly has real ideas. And how nice to see brilliant special effects used not for destruction but revelation.
'Plunkett and Macleane' (10/1/99)
"Plunkett and Macleane" is a buddy movie based on a true story about two highwaymen in 18th century England. Directed by newcomer Jake Scott, the film is cleverly cast, with Robert Carlyle playing Plunkett and Jonny Lee Miller (also of Trainspotting fame) doing a turn as Macleane. These two thinking man rogues undertake a "gentlemen's agreement." Plunkett, a clever apothecary turned thief, wants money so he can go to America. Macleane wants money to climb the social ladder. And so Plunkett bankrolls Macleane, providing him with the money for a wardrobe befitting a "gentleman." This enables Macleane to move easily through high society and a maze of party scenes that are a veritable feast of debauchery. Indeed, at times the film feels like "Trainspotting" all over again, except with intelligible accents and better costumes. As with all good thieving partnerships, a woman, Lady Rebecca Gibson (Liv Tyler), adds a necklace to the mix. But, fortunately, the lovable dandy Lord Rochester (Alan Cumming) is on hand to save the day and steal the movie.
"Plunkett and Macleane" is a remarkably modern film despite its period setting. For example, the music filtering through the parties the music is strictly house, bringing a night-club aura to a world of velvet and lace. Like the music, the story, is sometimes far-fetched and some of the jokes are better understood with a Brit to translate. That said, it is a highly entertaining movie in a genre that is often as stiff as the Lady Gibson's boning.
'Pocahontas' (6/19/95)
Hollywood wisdom has long decreed that boys won't go to girls' movies. But somebody at Disney must be feeling rebellious: Pocahontas is unabashedly girl-driven. Just about everything in this lavish, animated feature is for the pigtail set, especially a big romance between Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) and the strapping John Smith (Mel Gibson). Assertive and the first great athlete among Disney heroines, Pocahontas doesn't hesitate a moment to risk her life for Smith and world peace. As a 6-year-old New Yorker put it, heading out of a "Pocahontas" screening, "Finally, I got to see a movie where the girl has black hair." (on video)
'A Price Above Rubies' (4/6/98)
Although "A Price Above Rubies" lacks the innovative energy of Boaz Yakin's debut feature, "Fresh," it makes up for it with a thoughtful, well-crafted script and an ensemble of powerful performances. A unique glimpse into the Hasidic way of life, the film contains some harsh criticism of Hasidic intolerance, but also approaches its subject with compassion and understanding. Sonia (Renee Zellweger) is a young Jewish mother and housewife who feels trapped within a moral and social structure she cannot make herself believe in. The story is ultimately a fairly conventional portrayal of a woman 'finding herself.' But that makes it no less moving, thanks in part to the efforts of Rene Zellweger. "A Price Above Rubies" is flawed, but the feeling at the heart of the story is genuine and helps the film to rise above its imperfections. (on video)
'Primary Colors' (3/23/98)
"Primary Colors" is the funniest, shrewdest and saddest movie about American politics since Gore Vidal's "The Best Man." It could have been merely vulgar and opportunistic. But Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May, know precisely the difference between exploration and exploitation. Like most movies about politics, the subject is idealism betrayed. What's different about this one is that it rejects both cynicism and easy moral righteousness. Our attitude toward John Travolta's seductive, piggish, charming, Machiavellian, idealistic and corrupt presidential candidate is as profoundly complex and ambivalent as what many of us feel about Clinton himself. "Primary Colors" can turn on a dime from a bawdy campaign-trail comedy to a trenchant glimpse at a complex marriage to a chilling contemplation of the personal wreckage political ambition leaves in its wake. I expected to laugh; I didn't expect to be moved. (on video)
'The Prince of Egypt' (12/14/98)
"Prince" is a nicely humanized story of Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer) and Rameses (Ralph Fiennes), two young men raised as brothers by Pharaoh (Patrick Stewart). One day, however, Moses meets up with a slave girl (Sandra Bullock) who claims to be his sister, and then he has a recovered memory about the slaughter of firstborn Hebrew boys. Moses then happens upon a burning bush and gets deputized by God. By the time he returns to Egypt to free the slaves, Rameses has become Pharaoh. What follows is a convincingly tragic sibling rivalry. "Prince of Egypt" largely breaks from the easy-money formula for animated movies: there's very little humor, no cutesy animal sidekicks, virtually no merchandising. But DreamWorks still clings to the overly theatrical songwriting and can't let go of the debilitatingly short running time. Plagues come and go in a musical montage. And that Ten Commandments scene? We don't even see God ask Moses to take dictation. But if the storytellers disappoint here, the animators work wonders. There's a spare and chilling depiction of God striking down firstborn Egyptian boys — as well as a big-budget parting of the Red Sea. In these moments, "Prince of Egypt" is what it should have been all along: a religious experience.
'Princess Mononoke' (10/26/99)
"Princess Mononoke," the most successful anime film in Japanese history, is the thinking kid's cartoon. Infused with a mystical animist spirit, this lyrical and often savage epic tells of a young prince who has fallen under a curse for killing a demon boar. Hoping to free himself from the lethal curse, he journeys to the forest—ruled by the magical Forest Spirit—where trees and animals are being destroyed by humans. The prince finds himself in the middle of a war between man and nature, the latter represented by gods in the form of wolves and boars. But this is no simple Nature Good/Man Bad ecological fairy tale. Everyone has his reasons, and no one has a lock on virtue. This English-language version — using the voices of Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Billy Bob Thornton and Minnie Driver — has a few lapses into banality, but the beauty and scale of Miyazaki's vision shines through. You'll see why, in animation circles, Miyazaki himself is considered one of the gods.
'Psycho' (12/4/98)
Gus Van Sant has given us precisely what he promised: a shot-by-shot, word-for-word remake of the Hitchcock classic. While it's an interesting theoretical exercise, in practice the end result is exactly the same movie, except in color. The same things that worked in the original — the shrieking score, the tight, suspenseful editing, the moralistic bare-bones storyline — work in this new version. The elements that didn't work to begin with, however, have degenerated even further over time. The final scenes in particular, with their clumsy Cliff Notes Freudianism, seemed charmingly naive within the context of a more innocent time, but now come off as simply parodic. The performances are the film's greatest success. Anne Heche, despite following Janet Leigh's every move, makes for a warmer, more sympathetic victim. And while Vince Vaughn shares some of the same boyish charm that made Anthony Perkins such a unique villain in his day, he adds his own brand of edgy high-strung skittishness to the role of Norman Bates. Van Sant makes good use of the fact the film is in color — and not just for the blood. Gone is the crisp, stylized black-and-white of the original; Heche dresses in vibrant pinks and oranges like some exotic bird while the motel scenes are shot in washed out tones that reflect its careful shoddiness. But, despite these small triumphs, the film remains a curiosity, interesting primarily for its relationship to its predecessor. But then, maybe that's what Van Sant had in mind.
'Punitive Damage' (10/29/99)
A documentary about past atrocities in the newly independent East Timor, "Punitive Damage" is a timely reminder of what the Timorese have suffered over the last twenty-four years. It is a compelling, maddening, sad, and yet ultimately uplifting account of the death of a twenty-year-old New Zealander, Kamal Bamadhaj, at the hands of the Indonesian government in East Timor in 1991. Four years later, his mother Helen Todd and The Center for Constitutional Rights brought a case against the Indonesian military and were awarded $22 million in a landmark decision that may set a precedent for bringing international human rights violators to trial. Interviews with Kamal's mother, his girlfriend, East Timorese witnesses, and the lawyers involved make up the bulk of the film, while frightening video footage (including self-damning film shot by the Indonesian military) and sometimes graphic photographs make the terror all too real.
The gripping subject matter and the mettle of the people involved are the strongest features of the film. It's impossible not to admire Todd. Although she lost her son she never loses sight of the fact that hundreds of thousands of Timorese families have lost loved ones without a means of seeking justice. Kamal too is an heroic figure whose ideals led him to fight for a people whom the international community had long ignored. Take the last line of his journal: "Whether total genocide occurs or not in East Timor depends not only on the remarkably powerful will of the Timorese people, but on the will of humanity of us all."
'Pushing Tin' (4/26/99)
Air-traffic controllers call what they do "Pushing Tin." Mike Newell's comedy, written by "Taxi" and "Cheers" veterans Glen and Les Charles, takes us inside the Long Island radar tower where the safety of 7,000 daily flights into and out of JFK, La Guardia and Newark rests in the hands of cocky pros like Nick Falzone (John Cusack). Nick, who prides himself on being the best in the business, mans his radar screen like a guy playing the ultimate videogame, with life-or-death stakes. The gamesmanship doesn't end with office hours. The macho competition extends into the men's private lives, as we discover when Nick's status is threatened by the arrival of the laconic, motorcycle-riding Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton), whose Zen-like cool instantly rubs Nick the wrong way. "Pushing Tin" unfolds with a loose, "M*A*S*H"-like sense of community. You're not sure where it's headed, but with an ensemble this good the aimlessness seems invigorating. It's when the plot kicks in that Newell's movie gets less interesting. It's frustrating to see such a promising premise, and such a delightful cast, wasted. "Elizabeth" fans will find the chameleonlike Cate Blanchett almost unrecognizable as a Long Island housewife; Thornton is a mesmerizing underplayer; Cusack a charming, quicksilver comedian, and Angela Jolie almost steals the show as the tattooed, vodka-swilling, poignant Mary Bell. They're all revved up; if only they had somewhere interesting to go.
Directed by Andrew Davis
Starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow
DAVID ANSEN
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Directed by Jon Turteltaub
Starring John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick
DAVID ANSEN
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Directed by Roger Michell
Starring Amanda Root, Susan Fleetwood
DAVID ANSEN
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Directed by Peter Greenaway
Starring Vivian Wu, Ewan McGregor
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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Starring Gillian Anderson, Sean Connery
YAHLIN CHANG
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Directed by Ron Shelton
Starring Woody Harrelson, Antonio Banderas
KEVIN STUART
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Starring Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels
JACK KROLL
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Directed by Jake Scott
Starring Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller
LOUISE ROSEN
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Directed by Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg
(Animated)
LAURA SHAPIRO
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Directed by Boaz Yakin
Starring Renée Zellweger, Christopher Eccleston
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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Directed by Mike Nichols
Starring John Travolta, Emma Thompson
DAVID ANSEN
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Directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner
(Animated)
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Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Starring (voices) Billy Crudup, Claire Danes
DAVID ANSEN
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Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche
ANDRÉA C. BASORA
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Directed by Annie Goldson
LAURA SHIN
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Starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton
Directed by Mike Newell
DAVID ANSEN
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