Indieopolis:
Reports from the Front Part 37
by Lola Bianca

“Russell Crowe deserves the award for A Beautiful Mind, but he won’t get it, because Hollywood doesn’t love anybody who dumps Meg Ryan!” an Academy member of Lola’s acquaintance predicted recently. Well, by the time this issue comes out, the Oscars will be over, and we’ll all know whether or not that prediction turned out to be true. Hopefully, whoever wins, the big presentation will not result in another case of mass food poisoning, as the Sci-Tech Awards portion apparently did, to the discomfort of some 150 guests.

Ah, the lengths to which journalism must go to get a story! This time, “Outside Sources” made the Ultimate Sacrifice – reading the New York Daily News while waiting for pizza at a certain celeb-owned NY style pizzeria! – and discovered a story, based entirely on rumor and innuendo, that indie enfant terrible Harmony Korine, the writer of Kids and the helmer who brought us Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, has fallen on hard times. According to the story, the 25-year-old Korine has recently suffered a string of “mishaps” which include: 1) starting a fire that demolished his grandma’s Connecticut house and canine companion, 2) somehow burning down the next place he lived, and 3) getting into a “big smash-up” on FDR Drive. A “friend” is quoted as saying, “I don’t think he actually set the fires.” According to the same story, the boy wonder has run out of dough and lost his artistic representation, and no one could be reached to deny or confirm the rumors. This apparently includes sometime gal pal Chloe Sevigny: the two were once referred to as the “Bonnie and Clyde of the indie film world.” In the spirit of further, completely unreliable investigative techniques, Lola visited some fan websites and learned (whether accurately or not) that Korine’s parents are Trotskyite firebombers, casting an even smokier glow on the proceedings, and that Grandma (assuming it is the same Grandma) actually appeared in Julien Donkey-Boy!

Chloe, by the way, is in the new Lars Von Trier film, Dogville, along with star Nicole Kidman and Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, Jeremy Davies, Ben Gazzara, and Stellan Skarsgard. Described as a “re-exploration of the concept of goodness,” the $10 million digital feature is set in a small town in the American Rockies (c. 1930s) but was shot, of course, since Von Trier refuses to fly, in a studio in Sweden. Von Trier screened an 8-minute “trailer” at the recent Berlinale and plans to preem at Cannes in May.

Hard times all around: Miramax recently axed some 75 employees, scaling personnel back to September 2001 levels. But they’re moving ahead with plans for an “anniversary release” of Steven Soder-bergh’s latest, Full Frontal, on August 2nd (13 years after sex, lies and videotape). And also with Quentin Tar-antino’s revenge thriller Kill Bill. Now that star Uma Thurman has had her maternity leave over Tarantino’s almost dead body, the opus seems ready to go at last, with an all-star cast including Warren Beatty, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen – and the lovely Lucy Liu as Oren Ishi, queen of the Yakuza! Jacqueline Bisset may also be on board for the June start date.

Meanwhile, David O. Russell (whose 3 films to date, Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings, are all in the MOMA Collection) has signed on to develop and helm a pic for Aviator Films and HBO about Dr. Temple Grandin, an autistic university professor and author known for her groundbreaking work in the humane treatment (and slaughter) of livestock.

And on the not-so-indie front (unless you define George Lucas as the world’s wealthiest indie filmmaker, which in a way he is!)… Move over, Ebert and Roper! At the recent SXSW media confab, Harry “Ain’t It Cool” Knowles, the amateur critic-turned-powerbroker got a private screening of the latest Star Wars episode, Attack of the Clones, and is now enthusiastically hyping the summer release, which he calls “relentlessly entertaining.” Well, call me old-fashioned, but Lola likes her entertainment to relent now and then, or at least to vary its pace!
Talk to me! indieopolis@hotmail.com.

Dark Angels
by Dr. Jim

Hollywood likes to think it’s the center of the universe, and never more so than when the universe is seen as something dark, sexy and scary.

Fortunately, the Silver Screen also had the foresight to select El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula (aka LA) as her home base.

This combo—scenic beauty and dark hearts—produced one of the great genres, so great that it took the French to name it: film noir. Mix some LA nightscapes with a truly paranoid vision of vicious, raw-meat-eating predators and voila!—a bunch of the greatest films ever made.

No one did it better than Billy Wilder, whose Sunset Boulevard (1950), is often cited as The Classic of the genre. Personally, I love dipping back a bit further in Herr Wilder’s body of work, to the Raymond Chandler-penned Double Indemnity (1944). No femme was ever more fatale than Barbara Stanwyck, whose shoulder pads reek sex, murder and betrayal. No protagonist was ever more venal than steel-eyed, jut-jawed Fred MacMurray. And no streets were ever more ominously shadowed, more cruelly arbitrary, more junglely tropic than the LA of this film. I mean, just try to imagine a world where Edward G. Robinson, as an insurance agent, is the sympathetic moral center.

Howard Hawks, whose nose for the Zeitgeist kept him on top of the heap for more than three decades, caught the Chandler express in 1946 and took Bogie and Bacall to their trend-setting best in The Big Sleep, based on Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. The streets were murky, the talk was hard-boiled (and quivering with double entendre), and who cared if the plot made no sense whatsoever (as even William Faulkner, who worked on the script, complained). This movie dripped noir attitude then, and still does now.

Both the plot and the LA locations fare a bit better in a 1978 version, with writer/director Michael Winner sticking a bit closer to the book. He’s served very well by a dynamite cast, headed by sleepy-eyed Robert Mitchum, the man who was born noir, as the ultimate Marlowe. If it’s all a little slow and creaky, just relax and let your eyes feast on the lovely period recreation and a supporting cast that starts with Richard Boone and Sarah Miles and doesn’t end.

One more variation on the Chandler body of work deserves mention, both for its LA locales and the depth of its noir. In 1974 Robert "Iconoclast" Altman brought Marlowe’s last adventure up to date in The Long Goodbye. Cast as an "anti-Marlowe," Elliot Gould mumbled and fumbled his way through the neon and glitz of High-70s Hollywood, with Sterling Hay-den as a violent screenwriter, Nina van Pallandt as the trapped and treacherous wife, Henry Gibson as a megalomaniac therapist and director Mark Rydell in a terrifying turn as a soft-spoken but truly dangerous mob boss. "Hoo-ray for Hollywood," indeed.

Of course, the all-time LA film noir is Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), which boasts some of the brightest work by one of our brightest princes, Mr. Nicholson. Jack shines as the nosey kitty-kat who almost loses his, Jake Gittes. Faye Dunaway fulfills the tragic heroine sister/daughter siren stilet-to-heeled shoes and John Huston turns into a frog in front of your eyes. Oh, and little Roman himself pops up a time or two, wielding the sharpest, cuttingest knife you’ve ever felt go up your nostril. And to top it all off, Robert Towne provided a script that’s actually about LA corruption and our water system and never—in 1974, mind you!—used the word "Watergate" even once.

For years, Jack struggled vainly to bring off Towne’s sequel, finally directing it himself in 1990. Two Jakes is generally regarded as a lesser film, but it does offer addicts of its predecessor an amusement park full of attractions, including another story about (now aging) Jake Gittes and his hometurf, LA (this time focusing on corruption and sub-division development), more vintage locations than the LA Times photo morgue, an opportunely timed earthquake and great performances (what else with Jack directing?) from a first rate supporting cast, including an opaque but fierce Meg Tilly as Dunaway’s off-spring, a murderous but melancholy Harvey Keitel as the other Jake, and a scary but soulful Ruben Blades as a Mickey Cohen stand-in.

Locations ranging from South Central to Laurel Canyon, from the Griffith Planetarium to the Santa Monica Pier, a period feel that’s both noirish and bluesy and some of the best performances of the year highlight Carl Franklin’s film of Walter Mosley’s bestseller, Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). Denzel Washington rings like true crystal as Easy Rollins and no one short of Tony Soprano plays the violent menace card quite as brutally real as Tom Sizemore; but the movie belongs to Don Cheadle, as Easy’s gun-happy killer of childhood friend, Mouse. Whether offering to shoot someone (anyone) or explaining why he had to shoot someone (anyone) or actually in the process of shooting someone (anyone), Cheadle’s Mouse is simultaneously funny, endearing and disturbing, and a star-making turn for Cheadle.

Robert Benton’s put a couple of lovely LA noirs together with The Late Show (1977) and Twilight (1998). In the former, writer/director Benton united Art Carney as a hard-boiled retired detective with Lily Tomlin as the flakiest remnant of the LA counter-culture this side of Jim Morrison to investigate some seedy murders of old friends. In the latter, Benton gives us old PI Paul Newman doing his best to stay loyal to old screen star Susan Sarandon doing her best to stay loyal to old studio boss Gene Hackman who’s trying to survive the "protection" of loyal old studio guard James Garner, all in a twi-lit world of cantilevered swimming pools and glass walled desert mountain top homes.

And never forget Ridley Scott’s influential Future LA Noir classic, Blade Runner (1981), with its Dantean nightscapes burying cavernous interiors, including the old Bradbury building, in which the inventor’s deadly and whimsical dolls march back and forth forever, while Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer battle it out on the roof in the rain. LA never looked so fatally, stylishly, grandly noir.
- Dr. James C. Lundstrom is Dean of Academics at Columbia College Hollywood.

Movie Reviews

Kissing Jessica Stein
by Gil Benzeevi
Kissing Jessica Stein is a romantic comedy with a twist. It stars Jennifer Westfeldt as Jessica , a successful but lonely young New Yorker who can’t seem to find the right someone. Every guy she has dated recently has turned out completely wrong for her. To make matters worse her mom who is worried that Jessica soon will be 30 and not married sets her up with guys based on their profession not compatibility.

As Jessica gets more and more frustrated she runs across a personal ad that she finds very appealing. However there is one problem. The ad is for “women seeking women” and Jessica so far has been straight. She decides anyway to go for it and ends up meeting Helen (Heather Juergensen), a woman who jumps at anything that appeals to her without putting much thought behind her impulses.

Jessica is the total opposite. She is hyper, nervous and second guesses herself all the time. Funny situations ensue as they start courting each other. Helen wants a full-blown love affair right away while Jessica wants to take it slow.

As their companionship evolves, Helen gets more and more frustrated at the lack of progress Jessica is making in the sack with her. Furthermore, Helen is upset that Jessica is embarrassed by their lesbian relationship and keeps it a secret from her friends and family.

It seems that Jessica loves the intimate friendship and fun they share but is uneasy at fulfilling the sexual aspects of their relationship. In the meantime, Josh Meyers (Scott Cohen), her old flame has got the hots for her again. This puts pressure on Jessica to decide if she is gay, bi or straight. What’s a girl to do? Well if you are Jessica you fumble through comical uneasy experiences trying to figure out who you really are and what your heart truly desires.

Co-written by Jennifer and Heather, this film is a sharp and amusing look at the single scene and the search for true love through the eyes of a neurotic but sweet upwaardly mobile woman.

Director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld poignantly lets Jennifer and Heather shine as he skillfully moves the story along to its surprising ending.

If you are looking for a sophisticated, witty film that takes a strange turn exploring romance then Kissing Jessica Stein will provide you with a belly full of laughs.

This film works both as a date flick or just as clever entertainment while providing a breath of fresh air from the mundane.

So if you are ready to let it all hang out then Kissing Jessica Stein is the film for you.

Showtime
by Gil Benzeevi
Showtime is a mediocre film that makes fun of buddy cop movies such as Lethal Weapon. It stars Robert De Niro as Mitch Preston, a tough no-nonsense veteran detective and Eddie Murphy as Trey Sellars, a rookie cop with an overblown personality who really wants to be an actor.

After Trey messes up Mitch’s undercover drug bust which causes Mitch to shoot and destroy a video camera belonging to a tv network, they are forced to work together as stars of a new cop reality-based tv series called Showtime.

Trey welcomes this opportunity with open arms and sees it as his big break into showbiz. On the other hand, Mitch can’t stand the idea of working with the incompetent Trey and doesn’t want anything to do with being on tv or acting. Nonetheless he has to go along with it since his captain ordered him to do it. The captain thinks it’s good publicity. He also wants to protect the police department from getting sued by the network for destroying camera equipment and putting a cameraman in danger caused by Mitch‘s actions.

René Russo plays Chase Renzi, the producer who is supposed to make the show exciting. She is constantly interfering in their lives by doing such things as redecorating their offices and apartments without asking Trey or Mitch’s permission. This irritates Mitch not to mention that he is not too happy having cameras following him wherever he is.

At the same time Mitch is trying to catch a gang that uses custom made guns to rob armored trucks. This odd couple match up of Murphy and De Niro has very little chemistry and is mildly humorous. The story is very weak and fails to deliver the big laughs. It’s not that Murphy and De Niro don’t try to be funny, it is just that they have very little to work with. Even the outtakes at the end are not that amusing. Showtime is basically a B film with A stars that should have been developed more before being made.

De Niro basically plays a stereotype of himself and Murphy does a pretty lame version of his usual shtick. For both of them this film is a walk in the park. An easy paycheck for the stars but not very entertaining for the audience.

Showtime will have you chuckle a bit but it’s nothing to write home about.

Helluva Time
by Witney Seibold
The Time Machine starring Guy Pearce, and directed by Simon Wells (H.G. Wells’ great-grandson) is a grand, rollicking adventure film. Which is something of a pity, since the book was a contemplative treatise on scientific curiosity and growing social separation. But I try not to take the book with me when I see the film of it, for the two are often so dissimilar that I know I’ll be disappointed. Unfortun-ately, The Time Machine was disappointing on its own terms.

We join Alexander Hartdegan (Guy Pearce), a typical engineer - obsessed, unclean, awkward - upon his proposal to his sweetheart. Not thirty seconds later, she is shot by a mugger. Our hero, understandably saddened, spends the next four years inventing a time machine. When he successfully saves his fiancée’s life in the past, she is, in a very Star Trek twist, killed again anyway. Darn. Wanting answers, he visits 2030 only to find, well, us. A misadventure from there, however, lands him 800,000 years in the future, according to his shiny brass gauge. There he meets the Morlocks and the Eloi and the accepted standard that one is food for the other. He sides with the Eloi because of the curvy Mara (Samantha Mumba), and battles the Cenobite-like “Über-Morlock” (Jeremy Irons).

I tried to enjoy this film, but the source material kept intruding. The book was so engaging, and actually explained how time travel might be scientifically possible. The film was simply the same adventure story remade hundreds of times since Star Wars was released. Instead of coming to conclusions himself, our hero is given the answers by various sources. The science does not even reach the level of farfetched. Guy Pearce, an actor I adore, begins well, acting in 1890s-wholesomeness-overdrive, but then becomes a stern and serious action-hero. Jeremy Irons, another actor I adore, goes joyously overboard as a white-faced mutant, but looks and feels out of place. Orlando Jones makes an appearance as a funny hologram/librarian.

The film could have been so many things, but opted for loud. Diverting, sure. But must classic literature be mistreated in order to divert?

High Infidelity
by Witney Seibold
A phrase often found in film reviews of teenage sex comedies is “youthful energy.” When a distinguished critic enjoys a film like Animal House or American Pie, they often cannot admit that it is merely a guilty pleasure, so they use the excuse: “It was full of youthful energy.” Alfonso Cuarón’s film Y Tu Mamá También, however, is a sex comedy where I may use the phrase, and be correct with it. It is a film which sternly expresses lust, broken promises, and, yes, youthful energy.
Y Tu Mamá También tells the story of Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal), two horny teenage boys with girlfriends abroad for the summer. They have been merrily whiling away the days smoking marijuana and masturbating. When they run into older woman Luisa (Maribel Verdú) at a wedding, their summer begins to take shape. They offer to take her on a road trip to a fictional beach, and she politely refuses. Until a few days later when she gets a call from her boyfriend, explaining that he had cheated on her. Crushed, she decides to escape with the dynamic duo. On the road she learns of their laid-back philosophy, the boys reveal truths of infidelity to one another, and sex is exchanged. The journey culminates when they reach the beach, and the trio’s closest truths come to light.

This film, for all of its nudity, crude jokes, and bodily fluids, is not interested in the conventional sex-farce blueprint. Although it contains the familiar teenage boys who cannot escape their hormonal prison, it is not a comedy of what fools they are. What it does do is express vividly the life that we have as youths, however awkward it may be. It is about recapturing that magic when your planned life doesn’t go as well as you had hoped. Director Alfonso Cuarón finds the perfect note between celebrating current youth and mourning youth lost and, using his convivial visual style, brings it to the perfect peak. It’s a small low-budget picture, and feels like it at points, but it strives to take us places. It is alive.

Harrison’s Flowers
by Gil Benzeevi
Andie MacDowell stars as Sarah in the explosive drama Harrison’s Flowers. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist husband Harrison (David Strathairn) is missing in war torn Croatia and presumed dead. She can’t accept that her husband might have been killed and decides to leave her two young children behind and risk her life to look for him.

It doesn’t take her long to find out she is way over her head in trouble and that the war in Croatia is savage, full of atrocious acts committed with total disregard for life. Not even women and children are spared. Nevertheless with her life constantly in danger, Sarah pushes forward in pursuit of finding what happened to her husband. She gets reluctant help from two seasoned photojournalists that knew her husband. There is Kyle (Adrien Brody) who is trying to make a name for himself and Yeager (Elias Koteas) who recently received his Pulitzer Prize.

Although Harrison’s Flowers does a remarkable job of showing the appalling nature of a dirty war, it suffers from bad casting, ridiculous situations and slow pacing.

The chemistry between Sarah and Harrison is minimal to non existent and they don’t seem to really connect. Both of them seem more detached and in their own world rather than having this powerful love that compels Sarah to risk her life.

Director Elie Chouraqui is crafty and does an exceptional job in showcasing disturbing war scenarios. His big problem is that the main characters are not compelling enough for you to really care about their plight.

Harrison’s Flowers has compelling and disturbing war action but otherwise is deficient in story development, casting and allure. Even the film’s title can use a name change. If you are looking for shocking and realistic fighting scenes but not much more than Harrison’s Flowers might work for you.

Zingers!

A BEAUTIFUL MIND
“A real old-fashioned movie-movie. The kind they used to make!” –Voyteck Marek
“Can you say, ‘Oscar bait?’”
–Louise Barrington
BIG FAT LIAR
“Kind of a ‘boy who cried wolf’ story, all about this kid who’s told all these stories, and he’s trying to redeem himself. All the antics at the end are just like dominoes falling all over the place. And the blue guy is such a great jerk! A good movie for the kids.” –Jake
BLACK HAWK DOWN
“I liked the dramatics of it, the way it dealt with a real life situation and how war hurts so many. And I liked the sense of machoism, how they never leave any of their guys behind, even their body parts. Nobody gets left behind.” –Jake
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
“The Hollywood ending changes everything and leaves you saying, ‘What?’”
–Hannah Bering
HART’S WAR
“I like Bruce Willis, and if I was really, really bored, I might consider going to see it! Hasn’t happened yet.” –Lime

I AM SAM
“Wonderful and heartfelt. Sean Penn is brilliant!” –Lime
“Better than A Beautiful Mind.”
–Lynn Callow
ICE AGE
“Hysterical & touching. The opening sequence is fabulous!” –Lime

IN THE BEDROOM
“About as real as a film can get ...the director [Todd Field] picks up on every minute detail. Left me depressed for...I'm still depressed thinking about it!”
–Don Grigware

ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS
“This delightful Danish-made Dogma ’95 comedy gives new meaning to the word ‘quirky.’” –Louise Barrington
JOHN Q.
“Denzel Washington holds the audience hostage for an excruciating two hours as he negotiates to obtain a brain transplant for the author of this stupid movie. Then the audience escapes and holds the theater management hostage to obtain refunds.” –David Rolfe
“Take kleenex – it’s very emotional.”
–Lime
KUNG POW!
“It’s a spoof, but they just went too far. It was really weird. And they used way too many brand names.” –Jake, recounting his wife’s and kids’ reactions

THE LORD OF THE RINGS
“Everything you expect if you read the book. Pure perfection.” –Miss P
“If you can keep from thinking about ‘The Mummy’ and ‘The Mummy Returns’ you'll love ‘Lord Of The Rings.’”
–Bill Needle

MONSOON WEDDING
“A beautiful movie from Mira Nair, full of humanity. Very life-affirming. The colors are a feast for the eyes. And – nice bonus – they speak English (most of the time) so you can see a foreign film without having to read subtitles!” –Lola Bianca

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES
“The Mothman Profit Sees.”
–Coco Vaughn

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
“Lightly Salingeresque celebration of eccentricity in a New York world that never was. ” –Lola Bianca
“After a funny first hour, the film quickly wears out its welcome.” –Mahatma K. Jeeves
SHOWTIME
Q: “Why does Robert DeNiro keep doing these kinds of movies?” A: “Lots of alimony payments.” –Marion Siwek & Lou Angelo
“A ridiculous, but fun story of two unlikely partners, trying to survive the bad guys, and each other.” –Lime
SUPER TROOPERS
“Makes no sense at all. But it was better than I expected.” –Jordan in Brooklyn
THE TIME MACHINE
“I wish I could have gone back in time to get my money back.” –John Romo