Fantas 2000 Criticas

[Joao Luis]

Poderăo consultar o programa provisório em :
http://www.caleida.pt/fantasporto/aleph/ficha?noticias_2000+63

SECÇĂO PREMIERE

BOYS DON'T CRY
1999 - USA - 116 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Kimberly Peirce
Genre/Type Biography [Feature], Drama
Based on a true story, this drama was adapted from the life of Brandon
Teena, born Teena Brandon, a woman who chose to live her life as a man and
suffered tragic consequences as a result. In 1993, 20-year-old Brandon
(Hilary Swank) leaves Lincoln, Nebraska for the nearby community of Falls
City, where she sports a crew cut, favors jeans and boots, and is regarded
as a man by most of the people in town. While Brandon's friend Lonny (Matt
McGrath) warns her that sexual outsiders aren't looked upon kindly in Falls
City, she develops a reputation for being something of a ladies' man, and is
soon living with a single mother named Candace (Alicia Goranson). But when
Brandon meets teenage Lana (Chloe Sevigny), the two become romantically
involved almost immediately. Brandon makes friends with Lana's mother
(Jeannetta Arnette) and her boyfriend, a burly ex-con named John (Peter
Sarsgaard). John and his buddy Tom (Brendan Sexton) run with a rough group
of men who like to drink and carouse, and they accept Brandon as one of
their own. However, when Brandon ends up in jail on a traffic violation, her
secret comes out, and, while Lana stands by Brandon's side, John and Tom
feel betrayed -- and their anger soon boils over into violence. A
distinguished feature debut for director Kimberly Peirce, Boys Don't Cry was
enthusiastically received in its showings at 1999 film festivals in Venice,
Toronto, and New York.

THREE KINGS
1999 - USA - 115 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director David O. Russell
Genre/Type War Adventure, Treasure Hunts, Adventure
Filming location Casa Grande, AZ
Filming location El Centro, CA
Filming location Mexicali, Mexico
Three stars team up for this unusual look at America's role in the war
against Iraq. In 1991, as the Gulf War winds to a close, three American
servicemen find themselves happy to have achieved victory but wondering
about the ultimate importance of what they've done (especially since Saddam
Hussein is still in power). Sergeant Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) is
a decorated Vietnam veteran and special forces officer with two weeks to go
before he retires; Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) has a new baby at home;
and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is probably just going to end up back in Detroit.
So when one of them comes across a map that seems to point out where
Saddam's forces have stashed a large cache of gold they stole from Kuwait,
they decide to follow the trail and take some of the war booty for
themselves. However, the deeper they journey into Iraq, the more they see of
the consequences of America's policies in the Middle East. Although
President George Bush and the American military urged Iraqi citizens to rise
up against Saddam Hussein, and pledged their support to a people's movement
against the leader, Iraqis found that when they took to the streets against
Saddam, the United States did not back them up, and the loss of Iraqi lives
was fearsome. When Gates, Barlow and Elgin become aware of what's happening,
they're torn between their desire to grab the fortune they came for and the
demands of their conscience to help the people they came to liberate. Three
Kings was directed by David O. Russell and marked a significant change of
direction after his dark-humored relationship comedies, Spanking the Monkey
and Flirting with Disaster.

BATS
1999 - USA - 91 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 1
Director Louis Morneau
Genre/Type Natural Horror, Horror
Flags Violence, Profanity
Beware of what goes "bump" (and "squeak" and "flap flap flap") in the night.
Dr. Sheila Casper (Dina Meyer) is a respected zoologist dispatched by the
government to Gallup, Texas, a small community suffering from an unusual
number of reported bat attacks. Casper finds this news puzzling, since bats
are generally placid creatures who avoid contact with humans. The local
sheriff, Emmett Kimsey (Lou Diamond Phillips), assures Casper that the
reports are on the level, and something needs to be done about swarms of
aggressive bats so thick they blot out the moon. Caspar and Kimsey discover
that a new breed of genetically altered bats have escaped from a research
facility and taken up residence in a cave near Gallup -- but the nocturnal
bloodsuckers have no intention of leaving as quickly as they arrived. Bats
was written by John Logan, who had two other projects hit the screen within
a few months of Bats' release: Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday and Ridley
Scott's Gladiator. The supporting cast includes Leon and Bob Gunton.

ANYWHERE BUT HERE
*** (PG-13)
20th Century-Fox presents a film directed by Wayne Wang. Written by Alvin
Sargent, based on the novel by Mona Simpson. Running time: 114 minutes.
Rated PG-13 (sex-related material).
By Roger Ebert
Wayne Wang's "Anywhere But Here" is about a frustrated mother who believes
she is rotting away in a small Wisconsin town. She buys a used Mercedes,
shoves her teenage daughter inside, and drives them cross-country to Beverly
Hills, where she will put her master's degree in early education to work,
and her daughter will go to auditions and be discovered by the movies.
That is the plan, anyway. Her daughter, who has not been consulted, is angry
and resentful at being yanked away from the family she loves, and doesn't
share her mother's social-climbing obsessions (their first apartment isn't
in "the posh part of Beverly Hills, but it's in the school district").
The affordable streets they live on reminded me of "The Slums of Beverly
Hills," the 1998 movie where jobless Alan Arkin steers his kids into the
same school system, but "Anywhere But Here" isn't a ripoff of the earlier
movie--it's more as if the mom saw it, and made up her mind to try the same
thing. For that matter, it's based on Mona Simpson's 1987 novel, so the
inspiration may have traveled the other way.
The mother is Adele August (Susan Sarandon), sexy, wildly optimistic,
consumed by her visions. Her daughter Ann (Natalie Portman) is a serious
kid, smart and observant, who is tired of her mom's sudden inspirations. I
think there's a possibility that Adele is manic, but the movie doesn't go
that route, preferring to see her as a dreamer who needs to grow up.
Adele is right and wrong about her plan: wrong to leave the way she does,
because going away to college might have provided a saner transition for her
daughter. Right that her second husband Ted, Ann's stepfather, "will always
be an ice skating instructor," and Ann's fate is not to be "a nothing girl
in a nothing factory in a nothing town." Adele waited too long to make her
own move and doesn't want Ann to make the same mistake. Well, parents have
been living through their children since the dawn of time.
Living in Beverly Hills is a challenge for both of them. Ann gets along
fairly well at school, but her mother is insecure behind her brassy facade
and afraid to go to the kind of posh holiday party that she moved to
California so they could attend. She deceives herself about one-night
stands, like a pickup by Dr. Josh Spritzer (Hart Bochner), who is "more than
just a dentist. He's writing a screenplay." Ann has seen enough of romance
to be wary of it, even though she attracts the attention of a nice kid named
Peter (Corbin Allred), who quotes T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets while
jogging--always a good sign.
The movie's interest is not in the plot, which is episodic and "colorful,"
but in the performances. Sarandon bravely makes Adele into a person who is
borderline insufferable. This isn't Auntie Mame, but someone with deep
conflicts and inappropriate ways of addressing them. And Ann is complex,
too. The movie is narrated in her voice ("mother made an amazing amount of
noise when she ate, like she was trying to take on the whole world"), and
her drift seems to be that her mother did the right thing in the wrong way
for the wrong reason. When a family tragedy brings them back to Wisconsin,
"the streets weren't as wide, the trees seemed lower, the houses smaller."
Sarandon's role is trickier and more difficult, but Portman's will get the
attention. Her big career break was in "The Phantom Menace," where she
played young Queen Amidala, but her talent also glowed in "Beautiful Girls"
(1996), where she was just on the other side of the puberty line and
vibrated with . . . well, kindness and beauty, I'd say. In "Anywhere But
Here," she gets yanked along by her out of control mother, and her best
scenes are when she fights back, not emotionally, but with incisive
observations.
The screenplay is by Alvin Sargent, who is gifted with stories of troubled
kids ("The Sterile Cuckoo," "Ordinary People"). Here he has two good
supporting characters: not only the poetry-quoting Peter, but also a cousin
named Benny (Shawn Hatosy) back home, who is her best friend and soulmate.
These kids, and a richer high school classmate who is not, in fact, a snob,
give the movie a reality; we sense teenagers trying to construct rational
lives from the wreckage strewn by their parents.

CHARISMA
1999 - Japan - 104 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 4
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Genre/Type Drama
Idiosyncratic auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed this bizarre allegorical tale
about a tree named Charisma. Goro Yabuike (Koji Yakusho) is a burned-out
hostage negotiator called to rescue an MP from a gun-toting lunatic
demanding that "rule of the world" be restored. In a moment of indecision,
he fails to act; as a result, both the MP and the lunatic die, while Yabuike
is sent on a forced vacation to an unnamed forest area. There he comes upon
a single tree surrounded by an I.V. pole, metal supports, and strange
altar-like objects. Yabuike soon discovers that the locals are enmeshed in a
battle over the tree's future. The plant is staunchly, sometimes violently
defended by Kiriyama (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi), a young resident of an abandoned
sanitarium who believes that Charisma is unique and should be preserved. On
the other hand, Mitsuko (Jun Fubuki), a do-gooder botanist, credits the
mysterious tree with poisoning its fellow plants and upsetting the
eco-system. Other characters include thuggish lumberjacks and rapacious
tree-hunters hoping to buy or steal the rare tree at any cost. As things
come to a head, Yabuike is forced to make the sort of decisions of which he
was incapable as a hostage negotiator. Is Charisma a force of evil or the
victim of the obsessions of those around it? Is it the unique specimen that
should be saved or the entire forest? Again Yabuike is flummoxed, but this
time he acts before it is too late. This adventurous, psychedelic film
explores many of the same themes of the individual's fate in modern society
as Kurosawa's early work, Cure (1997). Charisma was screened in the
"Directors Fortnight" section of the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and as a part
of the director's spotlight at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival.

PASSION
1999 - Australia / USA - 98 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Peter Duncan
Genre/Type Period Drama, Docudrama, Psychological Drama, Drama
Pianist, composer and archivist Percy Grainger was publicly known for a
brief concert career, several interesting contemporary classical
compositions and researching and documenting a wealth of English folk music.
Privately, Grainger's life was tumultuous and unconventional, as chronicled
in the film Passion. Set in London in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of
World War I, Percy Grainger (Richard Roxburgh) is making a name for himself
as a pianist; his recitals are known for his fiery performing style and
fondness for dropping non-traditional pieces into his repertoire. Percy's
career is guided by his mother, Rose (Barbara Hershey). Their relationship
goes far beyond the normal bounds of family or business; Percy and Rose are
also lovers, with Percy satisfying Rose's sad-masochistic impulses (which
are aggravated by the fact she's contacted syphilis). Percy is also
attracted to Alfhild (Claudia Karvan), who is uncooperatively married to his
best friend, Herman (Simon Burke). Karen (Emily Wood), a lovely piano
student, is interested in being tutored by Percy; Alfhild and Herman think
this is a fine idea, and surprisingly so does Rose. However, Karen soon
becomes Percy's lover as well as his student, and when Rose discovers Karen
is willing to satisfy Percy's erotic appetites for pain, she no longer
approves of Karen's presence. The film follows Grainger's life until he
moves to New York City, where he spent most of his life until committing
suicide in 1961.

DEN BLĹ MUNK
1998 - Denmark - 89 min. - Feature, Color
AKA The Blue Monk
AMG Rating 2
Director Christian Braad Thomsen
Genre/Type Romantic Drama, Drama
The emotional ups and downs of the habitués of a Copenhagen watering hole
form the basis of this Danish drama. The Blue Monk is a bar favored by jazz
fans, where classic sides by Thelonious Monk dominate the jukebox and the
regulars use the waitresses and bartenders as sounding boards for their
emotional problems. One of the customers develops a crush on his favorite
waitress; however, she's become involved with someone else, and she soon
discovers her customer isn't as harmless as she thought. This mood piece,
dominated by a classic jazz soundtrack, was shown at the 1999 Gothenburg
Film Festival.

SCARFIES
1999 - New Zealand - 94 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Genre/Type Comedy Thriller, Crime Comedy, Comedy
In Scarfies, a group of college students think they've stumbled into some
fast money only to discover there are some dangerous strings attached.
Reliable Scott (Neill Rea), practical Emma (Willa O'Neill), naive Graham
(Charlie Bleakley), charming but sneaky Alex (Taika Cohen) and Alex's
embittered ex-girlfriend Nicole (Ashleigh Seagar) are all students at New
Zealand's Otago University; Otago students are nicknamed "Scarfies" for the
scarves that were once part of the student uniform. The five are looking for
a cheap place to live and seem to have found one when they discover a large,
abandoned house suitable for squatting, complete with electricity. But the
real bounty is in the basement, which is hiding a large, lush garden of
marijuana. The five quickly harvest the herb and sell it for a quick $50,000
(far less than it was actually worth), but they've soon managed to spend
their new found wealth just in time for the man who planted the pot to
arrive, ready to kill whoever made off with his cash crop. The five trap the
intruder in the basement, but when it becomes obvious they need to formulate
a long term solution, the tensions start to get the better of them.

SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY
1999 - USA / Canada - 86 min. - Documentary, Color
AMG Rating Not available
Director Gough Lewis
In 1995, a 22-year-old gender studies student named Grace Quek decided to
break a world record by having the "world's largest gang bang" -- she had
sex with 251 men in a ten hour period while the entire event was videotaped.
The results became the subject matter of this documentary, which premiered
in competition at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. In addition to fame and
notoriety, was Grace (now known as Annabel Chong) seeking to fill a void in
her life, or was this simply a troubled story of delusion, self-destruction
and a repressed childhood? We find that Annabel saw this feat as an
empowering act, a step forward in her self-styled feminist movement. Yes,
she was repressed as a child (and is still condemned by her Asian parents
for her shameful acts). Yes, Annabel is self-destructive, mutilating herself
and accepting pornography as an alternate source of acceptance and financial
compensation. But is there more to her than that? Is there any hope that she
may rise above her mental anguish and put the pieces of her life back
together? Both powerful and depressing, this documentary contains explicit
graphic sex and self-mutilation.

THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE
1998 - min.
AMG Rating Not available
Director Christopher Miles
In this period piece set in England in 1776, Betsy, the eldest daughter of
the 'nouveau riche' Sterling family from the city, is to wed Sir John, the
son of the aristocratic but poor Ogleby family from the country. However,
Betsy's sister Fanny, who has secretly married her father's clerk by whom
she is pregnant, quickly becomes the object of attention not only of Sir
John but also of his elderly father, Lord Ogleby. Betsy's father, who is not
aware that Fanny is already married, secretly agrees to exchange one
daughter for the other. Soon everyone is acting at cross-purposes, the
immediate concern being how to save face. The Clandestine Marriage is a
comedy of errors set against the lush landscape of an English country estate
in high summer.

S.
1999 - Belgium - 95 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2 (Low Budget, Low Artistic Quality)
Director Guido Henderickx
Genre/Type Black Comedy, Crime Thriller, Comedy Drama
A young woman finally decides she's had enough of people taking advantage of
her and does something about it in the violent Belgian drama S.. S. (Natali
Broods) is the product of a blighted childhood -- her father was a murderer
who often molested her, while her mother was a prostitute who wasn't around
much. Grown to adulthood, S. is a confused and angry bisexual who one day
discovers her boyfriend cheating on her -- so she kills him. S. is later
spurned by another one of her lovers (this one female), and soon she has
gone on a crime spree, shooting people who in her mind symbolize her
problems, including the manager of a sleazy peep show and a priest with
physical designs on her. S. features music by the British rock band dEUS; it
was shown as part of the 1999 San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

I ZOMBIE, The Chronicles of Pain
1997 - min.
AMG Rating Not available
Director Andrew Parkinson
In this horror movie, botanist Mark is bitten by a sick woman while on a
field trip and is infected with a virus that makes him crave human flesh. On
his return to London, he rents a new flat and lives a life of isolation
where he can satisfy his need. Although repulsed by his own violent
behavior, he still takes a series of victims, eats them, and disposes of the
remains as best as he can. As his illness progresses, he becomes weaker and
more disoriented. His unsuspecting girlfriend Sarah is shattered by his
disappearance but slowly gets back on her feet. However, Mark is still
obsessed with Sarah and determined to see her again. He manages to drug her
and bring the comatose body to his flat. He begins to hallucinate, but he
comes back to his senses and returns her safely home. As he is getting
weaker and weaker, he breaks his leg while dragging the body of one of his
victims. Unable to seek medical help, he attaches a metal plate on to the
side of the broken leg. The boundaries between his hallucinations and
reality become more and more blurred. The flesh on his face starts to
ulcerate. He can no longer leave his flat. His decaying penis falls off
while he is masturbating. All that is left is to attempt to die in a
dignified manner. I ZOMBIE, The Chronicles of Pain is a cult film for
midnight screenings at offbeat festivals and for aficionados of horror
movies.

MISERY HARBOUR
1999 - Norway / Canada / Denmark - 100 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2.5
Director Nils Gaup
Genre/Type Docudrama, Adventure Drama, Period Drama
Adapted from the semi-autobiographical fiction of Scandinavian author Askel
Sandemose, Misery Harbor concerns Espen (Nikolaj Coster Waldau), an
introverted young author in love with a young woman named Jenny (Anneke von
der Lippe). Jenny is involved with a literary critic, so, hoping to impress
her, Espen asks her to read the manuscript of his first novel. In the novel,
the protagonist, much like Espen himself, runs away from the Danish factory
town of his birth and finds work on board a British ship, where he meets
Wakefield (Stuart Graham), an ill-tempered ne'er-do-well. Wakefield is
determined to make Espen's life miserable at every opportunity, and when
Espen jumps ship in Newfoundland and begins to court Eva (Margot Finley),
Wakefield is on hand to spoil that as well. Misery Harbor was the first in a
series of films co-produced by Canadian and Norwegian production companies.

ROCK-N-ROLL FRANKENSTEIN
"The mind is a terrible thing not to get wasted."
I met Rock-n-Roll Frankenstein director Brian O'Hara at the NYUFF (New York
Underground Film Festival). His movie had been denied submission and,
despite the cold, he was protesting outside the festival doors, showing his
movie trailer atop two duct-taped milk crates, and handing out condoms
stuffed with rubber gerbils.
If you haven't had the pleasure of attending NYUFF, let me give you the
Cliffs Notes -- the show is a ribald and irreverent celluloid celebration of
acid trips, Satan worship, bathroom pranks, rave parties and punk rock
mayhem. O'Hara told me that Rock-n-Roll Frankenstein had been turned down
because of its racy humor -- a pretty hard sell, considering I'd just come
from viewing a movie murderer play connect-the-dots with his victim's
unmentionables. Normally, I never review films without distributors, but I
was intrigued and ordered a copy. Not only does Rock-n-Roll Frankenstein
embody everything good about B-movies, it boldly goes where bad taste has
rarely gone before. The story of a reanimated rock stud who accidentally
receives Liberace's loins -- this fright flick made me outtake a Pepsi
within the opening five minutes. One scene contained necrophilia-inspired
masturbation; another displayed more than a dozen celebrity johnsons,
marinating in formaldehyde.
If this videotape had breasts and a red dress, we'd be honeymooning in Las
Vegas right now.

THE ITEM
1999 - USA - 100 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Dan Clark
Genre/Type Monster Film, Supernatural Forces, Psychological Thriller,
Horror Comedy, Horror
This wickedly funny and outrageously weird oddity from Dan Clark was the
first entry in the Sundance Film Festival's Dramatic Competition shot
entirely on Digital Beta video, then transferred to film. More than a gory
exploitation quickie but less than an art movie, this nightmarish and
hyper-violent exercise involves the efforts of a group of homicidal thugs to
obtain and safeguard "The Item," a disturbingly phallic worm-thing that may
be the Devil himself. Curious mishandling of the creature revives it,
whereupon it begins manipulating the minds of everyone it comes into contact
with. The hoary premise of a devilish fiend's showing characters their worst
fears is twisted into a perverse Freudian nightmare, punctuated by fits of
slasher-movie gore and hilariously overblown gun battles that would make
Quentin Tarantino take pause. Clark shamelessly tosses elements from
Tarantino's oeuvre into a blender with David Lynch's Eraserhead, the Roger
Corman-produced Galaxy of Terror, and numerous other horror/exploitation
favorites, but he produces something that functions surprisingly well as
gruesome black comedy.

HAPPY, TEXAS
1999 - USA - 104 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Mark Illsley
Genre/Type Romantic Comedy, Con/Scam, Comedy of Errors, Comedy
Happy, Texas is a fish-out-of-water comedy about two con men, escaped from
prison, who pose as gay lovers to hide out in a small Texas town. Mistaken
for consultants to the Little Miss Fresh Squeezed Beauty Pageant, Harry
(Jeremy Northham) and Wayne (Steve Zahn) go along with the ruse so they can
stake out the local bank, owned by Josephine "Joe" McClintock (Ally Walker).
The story kicks into high gear as Harry starts falling in love with Joe but
cannot let on about his feelings. Also complicating matters is that gay
Sheriff Dent (William H. Macy) has the hots for Harry, and Harry must
pretend he's interested to keep the cops off his back. Meanwhile, Wayne is
getting in touch with his feminine side as he tries his best to teach these
little girls dance steps and flaming baton twirling; he's also lusting after
the girls' teacher, Ms. Schaefer (Illeana Douglas). Everything leads up to
the big beauty pageant where the cops are finally on Harry and Wayne's tail.
First time director Mark Illsley received wide media attention for this
commercial piece, which sold to Miramax after a very public and intense
bidding war. Steve Zahn won a special acting award for his performance in
this film, which premiered in dramatic competition at the 1999 Sundance Film
Festival.

HEAVEN
1998 - New Zealand - 102 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2
Director Scott Reynolds
Genre/Type Supernatural Forces, Psychological Thriller, Thriller
Scott Reynolds directed this New Zealand thriller about a transsexual
stripper. Architect Robert Marling (Martin Donovan) has mounting problems
that include drinking, gambling, and alimony payments to his ex, Jennifer
(Joanna Going), who's attempting to gain custody of their son. Redesigning a
strip club for his psycho friend Stanner (Richard Schiff), Marling meets
transsexual dancer Heaven (Danny Edwards), who has precognitive visions.
Heaven's therapist, Dr. Melrose (Patrick Malahide), employs his patient's
predictions to boost his own bank account. With all professional ethics
evaporating, the evil Melrose sleeps with Jennifer while counseling Marling.
Hallucinatory visions prompt Heaven to warn Marling of even more hellish
events awaiting in his future. Shown at the 1998 Montreal World Film
Festival and the 1998 Toronto Film Festival.

DOGMA
1999 - USA - 135 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Kevin Smith
Genre/Type Satire, Comedy
Would you believe that the last living descendent of Jesus Christ is a woman
working at an abortion clinic in New Jersey? And that she's been sent on a
holy mission with two minor characters from Clerks and Mallrats as her
guides? Prepare to suspend any and all disbelief as you watch the religious
satire Dogma, the fourth film from writer/director Kevin Smith. Bethany
(Linda Fiorentino) has been disappointed in life and has found her faith
severely tested after her husband leaves her when she discovers she cannot
have children. So Bethany is all the more puzzled when she's approached by
Metatron (Alan Rickman), a grumpy angel. Metatron wants her to help him stop
Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and Loki (Matt Damon), two fallen angels who were
ejected from paradise and have escaped from exile and are heading to New
Jersey. If they are able to pass through the arc of a certain church, it
will prove God is fallible and the world will come to a swift end. Bethany
has no idea what to do or why she's been given this project, but she heads
out anyway, with her assigned assistants Jay (Jason Mewes), an appallingly
rude former dope dealer and self-styled ladies man, and Silent Bob (Kevin
Smith). Along the way, Bethany picks up more helpers, including a celestial
muse named Serendipity (Salma Hayek) and Rufus (Chris Rock), who claims to
have been the 13th apostle and that Jesus owes him $12. Boasting a stellar
supporting cast (including George Carlin, Jason Lee, Janeane Garofalo, Bud
Cort, and Alanis Morissette as God), Dogma proved to be highly controversial
even before its release. Miramax Pictures, owned by Disney, financed the
film, but several weeks before Dogma's world premier at the Cannes Film
Festival, they announced they would not release the picture and intended to
sell it to another distributor. Director Smith, however, has always
contended that Dogma is a film about the importance of faith, if not
organized religion.

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT
1999 - USA - 88 min. - Animated, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Trey Parker
Genre/Type Musical Comedy, Satire, Anarchic Comedy, Comedy
The most tasteless third graders on television graduate to the big screen,
as Trey Parker and Matt Stone expand their animated series with foul-mouthed
humor that might breach the boundaries of basic cable. In the small Colorado
town of South Park, good natured Stan Marsh, slightly neurotic Kyle
Broflovski, fat and petulant Eric Cartman, and perpetually doomed Kenny
McCormick are psyched for the premiere of the first feature film from
flatulent Canadian TV performers Terrence and Philip, entitled Asses Of
Fire. The movie is rated R, but that's not about to stop the boys from
sneaking into the theater. However, when the boys' language gets bluer by
the minute after seeing the film, their parents and school administrators
decide that something must be done. Kyle's mother comes up with the ideal
solution: blame Canada. Terrence and Philip end up in jail for corrupting
America's youth, while the Canadian Air Force retaliates with an air strike
targeting the Baldwin Brothers. The boys soon organize a children's
underground resistance force to free Terrence and Philip before they can be
executed; meanwhile, in a sensitive subplot exploring relationship issues,
we're permitted an inside look at the domestic problems of Satan and his
lover, Saddam Hussein. As on the TV show, Parker and Stone perform the
voices of most of the characters, and they also wrote several songs for the
film; George Clooney, Minnie Driver, Eric Idle, Dave Foley, and Mike Judge
contribute voices. Not to spoil the plot, but rumor has it that Kenny dies.

SECÇĂO COMPETITIVA FANTÁSTICO

EXHUMING MR RICE
(1999)
Directed by Nicholas Kendall
Plot Outline: A terminally-ill boy's life is saved when his deceased
400-year-old friend, "Mr. Rice", leads him on a treasure hunt to find a
magical "Potion of Life".

Exhuming Mr. Rice
Starring: David Bowie, Bill Switzer
Director: Nick Kendall
Plot
The script, by Montreal writer Joel Wyner, starts off with the funeral of
Mr. Rice, best friend to his neighbor Owen Walters. Owen is in treatment for
Hodgkin's disease and fears he'll be the next to die.
Their friendship is shown in a few quick flashbacks. Owen launches into a
scavenger hunt that is Mr. Rice's posthumous legacy to him, a search for a
potion that guarantees a full lifetime. It turns out that Mr. Rice has lived
for 400 years on such potions.

BESAT / POSSESSED
(1999)
Director : Anders Ronnow-Klarlund

Summary: Very nice horror flick, but don't expect anything
out-of-the-ordinary

Pretty scary Danish horror movie with a sudden unexpected twist in the plot.
If you don't expect anything too fancy you won't be disappointed - although
it sometimes rips off Nattevagten (The Nightwatch) a bit too much

GUNBLAST VODKA
(1999)
Directed by Jean-Louis Daniel
Plot Outline: Supermodel Everhart is kidnapped by bad guy Prochnow and
rescued by good guy Otto in technopop action.

TUVALU
1999 - Germany - 101 min. - Feature, B&W
AMG Rating 2.5
Director Veit Helmer
Genre/Type Romantic Drama, Psychological Drama, Slapstick, Romantic Comedy,
Comedy Drama
Drawing from the influences of Georges Méličs, Jean Vigo, Buster Keaton, and
Franz Kafka, noted German filmmaker Veit Helmer directs this atmospheric,
darkly comic film about attendants at a public swimming pool. Lonely Anton
(Denis Lavant) watches over his bathhouse located in the midst of a barren
industrial moonscape. He spends much of his time pining for a life on the
ocean and thinking of ways to trick his sightless father into believing that
their run-down establishment is actually thriving. Anton's narrow world
comes crashing down when his wife spurns him after her father is killed in
one of Anton's pools because of his devious brother Gregor's misdeeds.
Gregor hopes to raze the place in order to put up some slick development
project, but Anton and the pool's bizarre assortment of regulars band
together to save the historic building. Soon Anton finds himself struggling
valiantly to save both his dad's prized bathhouse and to win back the woman
he loves. Tuvalu was screened at the 1999 San Sebastian Film Festival.

CONVERGENCE
1999 - Canada - 94 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2.5
Director Gavin Wilding
Genre/Type Psychological Thriller, Supernatural Forces, Thriller
A brush with death causes a woman to see into the world in a different way
in this psychological thriller from Canada. A young woman writing for a
tabloid (Cynthia Preston) is working with a veteran reporter (Christopher
Lloyd) on a story a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be able to
predict people's deaths. The woman finds herself flashing back to a plane
crash in which she was nearly killed, and recalling a series of unusal
events that occured to her in their wake. Soon she begins to wonder if these
things may be linked in some way.

Convergence (1999)
A young journalist (Cynthia Preston) is assigned to work with a more
experienced writer (Christopher Llloyd) on a scandal paper. On an assignment
to write about a mental-hospital patient who supposedly can predict people's
deaths, the younger reporter suddenly experiences a recurrence of lost
feelings she had from a near-death experience years previous in an air
crash.

ANIMAL FARM
1999 - USA - 89 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2
Director John Stephenson
Genre/Type Political Satire, Tragi-comedy, Satire, Comedy Drama
Artistic/ Production Styles Made for TV
From book by Orwell, George
From book Animal Farm
George Orwell's political fable about corruption and betrayal in
post-revolutionary Russia gets a new look in this version that employs a
cast of real animals alongside digitally manipulated critters and lifelike
beasts crafted by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. At the Manor Farm, the
alcoholic master Mr. Jones (Pete Postlethwaite) is cruel to his animals and
has horribly mismanaged the property. One night, the wise but elderly pig
Old Major (voice of Peter Ustinov) gathers the animals and speaks of a
remarkable dream, in which the animals throw off their tyrannical human
masters and learn to reap the fruits of their own labors. After Old Major's
death, two other pigs, Snowball (voice of Kelsey Grammer) and Napoleon
(voice of Patrick Stewart) lead a revolution that drives Jones from his land
and leaves the animals in charge of their own destiny. After their revolt,
Snowball and Napoleon rule side by side, but Napoleon soon becomes drunk
with power and squeezes Snowball out of authority, eventually turning the
other animals against him. With Boxer (voice of Paul Scofield), a
simple-minded but loyal and physically powerful horse, as a role model,
Napoleon leads the animals on a campaign of self-denial and hard work that
will bring them security and freedom; however, it soon becomes obvious that
Napoleon is growing fat while the other animals are starving, and he is
quickly becoming the sort of creature he once waged war against. Animal Farm
received its American premiere on the TNT cable TV network in October 1999;
it opened as a theatrical release in several other countries shortly
afterward.

Animal Farm
A guest review by Cassiopeia
(10-year-old American Shorthair Felis catus)
The couch near the TV is the comfiest place in the house for a good 12-hour
nap. Yes, the television can be rather disturbing to one's sleep, especially
now that my human has installed what is called a SurroundSound system, which
might more accurately be called a "Making It Sound Like the Automobile Crash
Is Happening Right in the Living Room" system, but any potential disturbance
is more than made up for by the fact that when the TV is on, my human is
close at hand for tummy rubs should I require them.
I usually ignore the television, naturally, its programming for the most
part not worth my attention, but my interest was piqued last night by the
film my human was watching. It was called Animal Farm, and it was based on a
novel by George Orwell. (I believe I have seen a tattered paperback of such
in the piles of books under the coffee table -- such fun to tip them over!)
The story (glimpsed through slitted lids -- even an interesting film is
nothing to lose sleep over) seemed to be about the barnyard animals of an
English farm deciding to throw off the cruel oppression of their humans.
During the (rather distressingly distracting) advertising breaks, when my
human turned her attention to the fat Sunday newspaper, I glanced at the
notes she was scribbling during the movie -- she'd written things like
"darkly humorous parable of demagoguery," "workers control the means of
production," and "some animals are more equal than others." I understand
that the film was a parody of a human method of government called
"communism" (which I learned a little bit about when my human joined me on
the couch to watch The Last Emperor). What I don't understand is why the
animals bothered with human methods at all. The animals chase their humans
off the farm in a misguided attempt to govern themselves. They miss the
whole point of animal-human interaction, which is that the humans are the
governed ones.
I noticed immediately that there were no cats on Manor Farm, which the
barnyard denizens renamed Animal Farm -- if there had been, the pigs who
take charge could have learned a thing or two about the benevolent
dictatorship with which cats rule their humans. It's ludicrous to try to
exist without humans. They possess the opposable thumb by which they are
able to produce the most glorious sound in the universe: the purr of a can
opener. The secret to ensuring that one's humans are docile is in treating
them kindly. A human who receives rewards -- such as happy purrs, rubbing
along the legs, and small, freshly killed rodents on the bed -- for good
behavior is much more likely to be tractable and manageable than a human who
is ignored or treated with disdain, which is what the animals of Manor Farm
were guilty of. Of course the animals saw Farmer Jones as their enemy --
they had no idea how to induce proper behavior in him.
What Animal Farm needed was some cats, and those poor dogs and goats and
hens and such would have avoided a great deal of heartbreak and suffering
and at the hands of those quite deluded pigs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
Now that Cassie has had her say, let me just jump in and fill in some
details she saw fit to ignore. Thanks to some fairly impressive animatronic
and animation work from Jim Henson's creature shop and excellent voice work
from the cast, the TNT Original movie Animal Farm is a bitterly funny and
ironic allegory of how oppressive governments take hold.
Major (the voice of Peter Ustinov), the old pig who lords over the animals
of Manor Farm, imparts his wisdom to his subjects just before he dies: "man
is our enemy... responsible for our suffering." When his death leaves a void
in the barnyard's leadership, up steps wicked Napoleon (the voice of Patrick
Stewart: Star Trek: Insurrection, Moby Dick), who creates for himself a cult
of pigsonality, as it were. At first Napoleon seems to be working toward
Major's goals of "justice and freedom" for all who walk on four legs.
Eventually, though, through his Guard squad of dogs and with the help of his
right-hand pig Squealer (the voice of Ian Holm: A Life Less Ordinary, The
Sweet Hereafter) and his hilariously propagandistic films, Napoleon shows
himself to be merely a big bully, an animal "more equal" than his comrades
and deserving the luxuries he denies to the others while he demands their
allegiance.
If Major represented the promise of communism, Napoleon is its reality,
declaring criminal intellectuals -- here, Snowball (voiced by Kelsey
Grammer: Anastasia), a pig who learns to read; Napoleon has his eye on him
from the beginning -- and dissidents, like hens who refuse to give up their
eggs and the dog Jesse (the voice of Julia Ormond) who begins to speak up
against Napoleon's slippery methods of maintaining control.
Some critics have complained about the happy ending (not in Orwell's
original book), which sees a new family of beautiful blond people moving
onto Manor Farm, long after Napoleon's downfall left the farm abandoned.
Jesse the dog, exiled but now returning to the farm, looks forward to better
times now that new people have arrived. Upbeat? I don't know. To me there's
an insidious undertone here. What is this new ending meant to represent, in
our post-communist, post-Soviet era? Are the shiny happy blond people meant
to make us think of, perhaps, UN peacekeepers in their jaunty blue berets or
American troops landing to fix the mess the locals have gotten themselves
into? Perhaps Jesse and her friends are going to find themselves in the
middle of a new, different kind of nastiness.

LOS SIN NOMBRE
1999 - Spain - 102 min.
Director : Jaume Balagueró
AMG Rating Not available
Spanish director Jaime Balaguero brings us this jet black horror thriller.
Claudia (Emma Vilarasau) and Marc's beloved six-year old daughter Angela,
dies under mysterious circumstances. Flash forward five years, and Marc has
left while Claudia wiles away her time watching family videos of happier
times. Angela suddenly inexplicably calls saying "They wanted you to believe
I was dead." Claudia immediately calls an ex-cop, Massera (Karra Elejalde),
to investigate the matter. To make matters worse, Claudia finds herself
stalked by psychotic ex-boyfriend Toni, who simply radiates evil. As the
movie progresses, Massera and Quiroga (Tristan Ulloa), a journalist who
works for a magazine specializing in the occult, uncover a bizarre sadistic
cult that sacrifices children.

Summary: A very impressive nightmare.
Los Sin Nombre is a film based in the novel The Nameless by Rampsey
Campbell. The film has been made with a look very similar to the David
Fincher films, and it talks to us about a mother that is looking for her
lost daughter, who is in the hands of a very strange group of fanatics.
The film is very scaring, and it will be one of the most important films of
the spanish terror.

RAT RACE
1999 - Austria - 63 min. - Feature, B&W
AMG Rating 2.5 (Low Budget)
Director Valentin Hitz
Genre/Type Psychological Thriller, Future Dystopias, Science Fiction
Artistic/ Production Styles Non-linear
A grim futuristic society where life is cheap -- literally -- provides the
backdrop for this thriller. Kater (Hayman Maria Buttinger) is a denizen of a
Vienna of the future where drugs are a common amusement, body parts are
frequently stolen from unwilling "donors" for the transplant market, and our
protagonist has lost a bundle at the rat races (yes, people actually bet on
which rodent can cross the finish line first). To make good on his debts,
Kater is drawn into a shadowy underground world of organ trading and brain
modification that eventually leads back to his former girlfriend and her new
significant other, a sinister crime leader. Rat Race received its American
premier at the 1999 San Francisco Film Festival.

AZ ALKIMISTA ES A SZUS
1999 - Hungary / Poland - 97 min. - Feature, Color
AKA The Alchemist And The Virgin
AMG Rating 2
Director Zoltan Kamondy
Genre/Type Supernatural Forces, Sci-Fi Comedy, Comedy
Science fiction, fantasy, comedy and eroticism meet in this unusual
Hungarian drama. Sziraki (Mariusz Bonazewski) is a college professor who is
studying ancient alchemist's texts, trying to discover the key to making
gold. When a virginal teenager he's become infatuated with helps with his
experiments, he discovers her purity is the secret ingredient to the
successful formula. However, since the gold evaporates after only a few
hours, he has to find a way to make the process stick, all the while
avoiding the girl's large and very angry boyfriend. This film as shown as
part of the 1999 Hungarian Film Week Festival.

The Alchemist and The Virgin
Zoltán Kamondi started his career with experimental and short subject
feature films, then in 1991 he made his first feature, Paths of Death and
Angels with his constant collaborators, director of photography Gábor
Medvigy and composer László Melis. The director-scriptwriter called his work
a "dream-film". Reception, although everybody acknowledged the authors'
undoubted talent, was rather mixed in Hungary. Abroad - in Cannes, Tokyo,
Chicago - the film was more obviously successful, it was especially the
French who liked it. This was followed by experimental, documentary and
short subject feature films for seven more years.
The Alchemist and The Virgin is important from several points of view. The
simple fact that it was made may offer hope for the ones who despite the
evidently harsh circumstances still wish to make feature films. It is also
important because according to the authors' intentions, which the film
itself also confirms, it strives to bridge the gap that lies between works
categorised by the usual terms "art-movie" and "popular-movie". The same
factors make it important in Kamondi's career. According to the director
alchemy, with a purpose spiritual and materialistic at the same time, works
as a metaphor for our age. The basis - the alchemist makes gold out of
plastic, which proves to be useless, turning back to plastic - is the
illustration of this age-metaphor. Its story is the elaboration of the
metaphor by uniting the different topics.
László Sziráki is a chemist with excellent gift. Despite his financial
difficulties his life seems to be on track. He teaches at the university,
his experiments are going well, he has a wonderful grandmother, whose name
itself suggests her wisdom, and who possesses an air of art-loving, calm,
bourgeois lifestyle. It was her, Zsófika, who brought up Sziráki, the reason
remaining a secret on purpose. No matter how much Sziráki rebels against
this bourgeois, sophisticated atmosphere, he cannot escape its effects.
There is an almost mystical telepathy between the two of them: musical
pieces and poems carry the message. Into the life of the man burning with
desire to find the Opus Magnum, suddenly bursts Eszténa who is also
searching for something that she herself doesn't know: Her life is
determined by becoming a woman and virginity. Her parents, especially her
father, love her more than anything else. His friend, Maci, the strong,
simple but sensitive gladiator adores her. The plot's main line is provided
by the ruthless menage-a-trois of Sziráki, Eszténa and Maci - it is an
easily understandable dramaturgy, the comic twists of which follow the story
through. The Opus Magnum-line, the mystical point of view of the story - and
this is what makes the structure successful - is in organic unity with the
main plot, it cannot be detached from it, it remains unseparable.
We see a tale, a strange and ruthless adult tale. But since it is a tale, it
has a happy ending: "they lived happily ever after". This ending, the happy
reunion is just as problematic as in the case of children's tales. This
adult tale is further elaborated by our behind knowledge. We know that
Eszténa and Sziráki come from Krúdy, who uses similarly strange tale and
legend topics; it is not with the plots of his stories, but with his
wonderful "sidetracks", similies, character-changes that he tells us what he
considers worth knowing and what we can only learn from him.
The gloom of the film also evokes Gyula Krúdy. Originally, Kamondi wanted to
make a film from a Buddhist tale of a thief who wanted to get a wonderful
sword, with which he could defeat everybody and earn a lot of money. He
doesn't know what he has to do in order to get the sword, so he visits a
monk who tells him: nothing's more simple than that! You have to withdraw
from the world, meditate for forty years, and then the sword will appear by
itself. This is exactly what happens, but by the time the sword appears, the
thief doesn't need it any more. The journey itself, the struggle devaluates
the aim, and to the changed personality of the much suffered man reaching
the aim means nothing any more. This is also catharsis, but a different
kind.
This background story reveals the hardest task of today's filmmaking. Making
a film that has "spirit". A spirit that can be relevant in this plastic-age.
Progressing on the narrow path between emotionalness and seriousness without
tending either to the left or to the right, which would mean losing
creditability. The other trap is unifying elements rooting in different
cultural areas, creating a coherent style. Kamondi solves this problem by
straightforward, impulsive storytelling and with the help of the sometimes
ironic humour dominating throughout the story. The excellent director of
photography Gábor Medvigy also serves this unifying method by photographing
in a clear and simple, almost unnoticeable, unique way. This is supported by
László Melis' intensive, not over-emphasized but instantly recognisable
music.
The director was brave to have given the main roles to actors unknown to
Hungarian audiences. It was worth taking the risk: Mariusz Bonaszewski and
Danuta Szaflarska are both excellent. The real revelation of the movie is
the intelligent and beautiful Eszter Ónodi, who plays her first leading role
here. Norbert Növényi's Maci (Teddy Bear) is a true delight: in his mimics
and gestures we can observe evil being born. We have never seen in Hungarian
films such a big-hearted dumbass, who's almost unable to speak and who does
incredible things. As Eszténa's parents, Erika Bodnár and Péter Haumann are
what they have to be: bitter and tired adults who don't understand a word of
what is happening to their daughter.
This tale-like, grotesque and philosophical adventure movie managed to
create the above mentioned, almost impossible balance. Its carefully
elaborated form, unique style and "spirit" make it worthy of our attention.

SEMANA DOS REALIZADORES

WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED?
1999 - New Zealand - 102 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Ian Mune
Genre/Type Family Drama, Psychological Thriller, Drama
Flags Violence, Substance Abuse (Alcohol, Drugs), Profanity, Sexual
Situations
The 1994 drama Once Were Warriors told a sad but compelling tale of violence
and alcoholism in New Zealand's Maori community, and What Becomes Of The
Broken Hearted? picks up the story several years later, though the focus is
less on an individual family than the spread of gang warfare among the
modern-day Maori. Jake and Beth Heke (Temuera Morrison and Rena Owen), the
combative couple in the first film, have now split up, Beth having lost her
patience with Jake's alcoholism and violent temper. Beth has moved on and
lives with her new boyfriend, and while Jake also has a new relationship,
his binge drinking and violence have continued unabated. Jake's eldest son,
Nig (Julian Arahanga) has fared little better in life, and dies in a fight
with a member of a rival gang. At Nig's funeral, Jake is confronted by Beth
and his younger son, Sonny (Clint Eruera), who feels Jake abandoned his
family and doesn't mind telling him so. Sonny decides he must avenge Nig's
death and joins forces with Nig's girlfriend Tania (Nancy Brunning) and his
pal Mookie (Tammy Davis) to exact their own kind of justice. However, an
unpleasant run-in with the Black Snakes gang only earns them more enemies.
Jake, meanwhile, is dropped by girlfriend, and sinks even deeper into the
abyss of his demons. What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted? was directed by Ian
Mune, continuing the story begun by filmmaker Lee Tamahori.

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted ?

Once Were Warriors was a great film, so great in fact, that when I heard
there was a sequel called What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, I was
mortified. We all know that the overwhelming majority of sequels are drivel,
riding on the back of something better, trying to squeeze out a few extra
sweaty dollars.
Unfortunately, there are few sequels good enough to compare with their big
daddies (assuming the first was reasonable anyway), Aliens and The Godfather
2 spring to mind. Thankfully, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted is now on
that shortlist, it is something very special and boy am I relieved!
We find ourselves a few years down the track after the death of Grace Heke.
Brutalised by her violent family surroundings, despairing at the plight of
her physically abused mother and raped by her uncle, she commits suicide.
This was Once Were Warriors, the stirring story of a young girl driven to
death by her family and their lifestyle. The underlying story, however, was
her growth and realisation. What Becomes of The Broken Hearted is the story
of Jake Heke (Temuera Morrison), her father. He's still not a very nice
fellow, he's still troubled and he's on a downward spiral to oblivion. This
is his story. Of redemption, of realisation, of growth. And like Once Were
Warriors, it's a masterpiece, touching, relevant and real..
Jake's son, Nig, is killed in gang warfare, however, his gang were the
assassins. Thankfully, this isn't a device for the hero going after revenge.
It's the catalyst to Jake's realisation that he loved his son and is in
depair over his loss - a great change from the hard, uncaring man we all
know from Warriors. The resolution of the movie is not about Jake being all
conquering like a Hollywood movie, but of an awakening, new hope and
survival. And herein, lies a very strange thing. This movie is being
advertised on TV as an emotional journey, but on the big screen previews, it
is an action blockbuster. That's some weird and misleading advertising, I
wasn't about to see this movie based on the cinema preview!
We are treated to great performances by all cast members, Clint Eruera
(Sonny - Jake's Son) and Nancy Brunning (Nig's Girlfriend) are excellent.
But the standout is Temuera Morrison, he's an immense, terrifying, brooding
man, yet conveys the underlying fears and frailties of a man prone to
violence and heavy drinking. This is a figure I know all too well, and
unfortunately so will many other people. It's what made Warriors an
experience for audiences around the world. It hit home to a lot of New
Zealanders and Australians. We both have extreme social problems caused by
alcohol, however, continually turn a blind eye. Warriors showed us how life
is and can be, it may have even educated someone, turned a few lives around.
It's good to see films like this made, because you like to think that
somewhere, someone's life has changed for the better. You like to see that
not every film is a piece of escapism and that some are actually made to
tell a story relevant to us all.
Broken Hearted is what idealistic movies should be. If you want to tell a
story - take note of this. Characters don't need to be perfect, real people
are flawed. Scripts don't need to be sharp or witty or perfect literary
pieces. Face it - real people don't emulate Dawson's Creek - they fumble for
words, they inflame each other and they rarely say exactly what they mean.
New Zealand film should be proud of this, it is one of the great movies of
our time.

TWO HANDS
1999 - Australia - 104 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2
Director Gregor Jordan
Genre/Type Action Comedy, Crime Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Crime
Action and comedy are served in equal portions in this Australian crime
thriller. Jimmy (Heath Ledger is a 19-year-old living in Sydney who is
somehow asked to run an errand for local underworld kingpin Pando (Bryan
Brown). Before Jimmy knows what's happened, he owes Pando $10,000, and finds
the gangster's muscle men are out for his blood. Jimmy attempts to stage a
bank robbery to recover the loot, with disastrous results; when he has a
spare moment, he tries to win the heart of Alex (Rose Byrne), a pretty girl
from the country. This slam-bang entertainment was an uncharacteristic entry
in the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, where it received its U.S. premiere.

Two Hands
For a nation broken in on the backs of convicts, the Australian crime film
is a surprisingly endangered species. Arthouse quirkiness rules, and when a
good crime flick does come along (think Redball or Idiot Box), nobody knows
what to do with it. Two Hands might finally be the movie to take Australia's
mean streets onto the big screen. Gritty, darkly comic and with a steadying
dose of laid back charm, Two Hands is good enough to make crime pay in
Australian cinemas.
Jimmy (Ledger) is a young hood desperate to crack it in the Sydney
underworld. He steps up by wiring into local drug dealer Pando (Brown), but
trips when he loses ten thousand dollars of the mobster's money. The only
answer seems to be a bank job, mapped out by his hooked-in sister, Dierdre
(Porter). But Pando and his mates, and a romance with an innocent country
girl (Byrne) send Jimmy's life into a tailspin.
After making out at Cannes with his witty short Swinger, director Gregor
Jordan takes on his first feature film with verve, imagination and a
needling sense of street urgency. Blistering bare knuckle boxing scenes,
bloody shoot outs, comic crims and drug deals are all part of Jordan's
grubby mise en scene, but with a refreshingly Australian twist. The crims
wear footy shorts and thongs, the shoot-outs tear their way through Kings
Cross and there's a moment of truth under the monorail station in Liverpool
Street. The film's already full throttle narrative is kicked up another gear
by its dramatic take on the here and now.
Jordan's casting also works to the film's mood of tough action and edgy
comedy. With winning foresight, Jordan's grabbed star-on-the-rise Heath
Ledger just before he makes it big in the States with 10 Things I Hate About
You and The Patriot. Ledger is lean and hungry, but still charming enough to
make Jimmy a sympathetically moving hero. Newcomer Byrne's ethereal
sweetness manages to pull her role above that of just "the girl", and Susie
Porter sprays spit and vinegar as Jimmy's hard nosed sister. But two
performances take the film out. A mulleted Steve Le Marquand is hilarious as
yobbo hold up man Wozza, treating the bank job like a day at the footy. And
though it was fun to see him drag around his bandaged up chopper in Dear
Claudia, Bryan Brown gives his best performance in ages as Pando. Half stony
menace and half back-slapping larrikin, he makes for an exciting and
intriguingly complex bad guy.
Tough, funny and compelling, Two Hands is the pumped up tour through the
criminal underworld that Australian cinema needed.

SUGAR TOWN
1999 - USA - 92 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3
Director Allison Anders, Kurt Voss
Genre/Type Showbiz Drama, Ensemble Film, Comedy Drama
Flags Explicit Language, Substance Abuse (Alcohol, Drugs), Sexual
Situations
Ten years after Allison Anders and Kurt Voss collaborated on Border Radio, a
gritty and evocative look at life along the margins of the L.A. punk rock
scene, the two have reunited for another look at the California music biz,
this time aiming their sights considerably higher up the ladder. Sugar Town
follows the interconnected lives of a handful of power brokers, wanna-bes
and has-beens. Gwen (Jade Gordon), a self-centered would-be rock star who
will do anything to further her career, is working as an assistant to
production designer Liz (Ally Sheedy), but when Gwen discovers Liz has a
date with famous producer Burt (Larry Klein), any loyalty she has to her
boss immediately goes out the window. Burt's latest project is a comeback
attempt from three aging Brit-rockers, Nick (Michael Des Barres), Clive
(John Taylor), and Jonesy (Martin Kemp). Clive is married to Eva (Rosanna
Arquette), an actress and one-time sex symbol depressed over her latest job
offer -- playing Christina Ricci's mom. Nick has a dilemma of his own -- the
band is strapped for cash, and Jane (Beverly D'Angelo), a potential
investor, will write them a check only in exchange for sex with Nick... who
unfortunately is only attracted to teenage girls. On the other side of town,
Carl (John Doe) is a session musician with a pregnant wife (Lucinda Jenney),
a flock of kids to support and bills to pay. When he's offered a spot in the
touring band of a popular Latina singer, Rosio (Lumi Cavazos), Carl is
torn -- his wife wants him to take the job, but Carl knows Rosio wants him
for sex as much as music. Sugar Town, which premiered at the 1999 Sundance
Film Festival, is authentically cast with many real-life rock musicians,
including Doe (a member of L.A. punk legends X, and co-star of Border
Radio), Taylor (from Duran Duran), Kemp (ex-Spandau Ballet), Des Barres (who
has sung with Silverhead, Chequered Past and The Power Station) and Klein (a
bassist and producer who's worked with Peter Gabriel and Joni Mitchell).

Sugar Town
*** (R)
Written and directed by Allison Anders and Kurt Voss. Running time: 93
minutes. Rated R (for strong language, some drug content and sexuality).
BY ROGER EBERT
"Sugar Town" knows its characters. It inhabits two overlapping worlds in Los
Angeles: the world of people who were famous once, and those who will never
be famous but dream of nothing else. "We were all in seminal bands in the
'70s and '80s," a middle-age rock musician observes, sadly and defiantly, at
a meeting to discuss forming a new band. The problem with being seminal is
that you end up in the shadow of your offspring.
These has-beens have money. Not a lot, in some cases, but enough. The movie
slides easily in and out of their homes, comfortable, untidy structures in
the Hollywood hills, strong on the "features" real estate agents brag about,
but looking knocked together out of spare parts of better houses. Their
clothes and hair reflect the way they looked when they were famous; their
images are made from last year's merchandise.
The movie's insider atmosphere is honestly come by. The co-directors,
Allison Anders and Kurt Voss, live in this world themselves, many of the
actors are their friends, the houses are where some of these people actually
live, and the movie was shot in three weeks. If it were a documentary, it
would be a good one.
The problem with being 40ish is that you're still young enough to want to do
dangerous things, but too old to ignore the dangers. Drugs are not free from
the shadow of rehab. Sex is a need but not a drive; you want it, but it's so
much trouble to go out and get it. Always at your back you hear time's
winged chariot drawing near. It's bad enough to be asked to play Christina
Ricci's mother, as a former slasher movie queen (Rosanna Arquette) observes,
but worse because "she's not an ingenue anymore."
The movie cuts between a rich assortment of characters; it's like a
low-rent, on-the-fly version of Robert Altman's "The Player" or "Short
Cuts." We meet a production designer (Ally Sheedy) who is so paralyzed by
self-help mantras that she has no social life. "Your genital area is
completely blocked," says her "openness counselor," offering a massage which
we suspect could unblock it using the most traditional of approaches. Her
house is a mess. She hires a housekeeper (Jade Gordon), a showbiz wannabe we
see badgering a drugged-out composer for the "three hit songs" she has paid
him to write. When Sheedy finally gets a date (with a music agent), the
housekeeper sabotages the date by advising against a sexy black dress and in
favor of a painting smock that's "more you," then gets a ride home from the
agent and descends directly to openness counseling.
Arquette's former slasher queen lives with an '80s rock hero (John Taylor of
Duran Duran). One of his former lovers dumps a kid at his door--his kid, she
says--and disappears. The kid (Vincent Berry) hates his name, which is
Nirvana. He's about 11, wears earrings and black eye makeup, and is very
angry. "I SAID--call me NERVE!" he snaps at her. "You want some hot
chocolate?" she asks. He softens up considerably when he realizes she is the
star of his favorite slasher videos.
Other characters include the pregnant wife (Lucinda Jenney) of a studio
musician, her drug-damaged brother-in-law and the Latino musician who wants
to seduce her husband. Jenney's performance is the most touching in the
movie, especially in the way she handles the brother-in-law. The rock agent,
named Burt (Larry Klein), strikes gold. He discovers a rich widow (Beverly
D'Angelo) who will provide backing for an album if she can sleep with a
former glam-rock star (Michael Des Barres). Their scene together is the
movie's funniest; he painstakingly reproduces his famous image with makeup
and clothes, only to have her size up his bare-chested leopard leotard and
ask, "Did you pull this out of mothballs just for me?"
One thing you notice in Los Angeles is that everyone seems to be connected
to "the business" in one way or another, if only in their plans. Sheedy
meets a wheatgrass machine operator at the health food store, who turns out
of course to have a screenplay and newly taken publicity stills. There's a
certain double-reverse poignancy in observing that some of the cast members
(Michael Des Barres, John Taylor, Martin Kemp) are indeed rock legends, and
others, such as Ally Sheedy, are in the midst of actual career comebacks
like the others dream of.
The movie is not profound or tightly plotted or a "statement," nor should it
be. It captures day-to-day drifting in a city without seasons, where most
business meetings are so circular and unfocused it's hard to notice when
they stop resulting in deals and simply exist for their own sake. You can
make enough money in a brief season of fame that if you are halfway prudent
with it, you can live forever like this, making plans and reminding people
who you are, or were, or will be.

CHANNELLING BABY
1999 - New Zealand - 92 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2.5
Director Christine Parker
Genre/Type Family Drama, Psychological Drama, Drama, Mystery
A woman who turns to a psychic to find out what happened to her daughter
discovers more than she expected when she's reunited with her estranged
husband. Bunnie (Danielle Cormack) was a member of New Zealand's hippie
counterculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in 1971 she went blind
after staring into the sun during an eclipse while under the influence of
drugs. One of the last things she saw before her eyes gave out was a soldier
named Geoff (Kevin Smith), soon to ship out for Vietnam. When Geoff returns
home wounded, he ends up in the same hospital as Bunnie; they fall in love
and eventually marry. They have a daughter, but Geoff's stability and
Bunnie's free-spirited nature prove a poor match, and one day Geoff leaves
her, taking the child with him. Bunnie is soon convinced that both Geoff and
the baby have died, and she sinks into a sea of sorrow and regret. After two
decades, Bunnie encounters Cassandra (Amber Sainsbury), who claims to have
psychic powers to put her in touch with her child. Her abilities as a medium
notwithstanding, Cassandra and her brother Tony (Joel Tobeck) are able to
track down Geoff, and they invite him to a seance, where a variety of
stories emerge about what could have happened to Bunnie's child. Leading
actress Danielle Cormack is a popular favorite in her native New Zealand,
thanks to her role on the television series Siam Sunset.

SCHPAAA
(1998)
Directed by Erik Poppe
Jonas and Emir are members of a criminal gang of 14-15 year-olds in Oslo.
Emir has slight brain-damage after being beaten by his father as a
5-year-old, and Jonas' biggest problem is stopping Emir from hitting people
on the head. One day, they are offered a job by a gang of drug-dealers:
Deliver a packet of heroin to one guy and beat up another. This is the start
of a chain of events that sends their lives spiraling out of control.

Summary: A schpaaa movie
For those of you who doesn't know, schpaa is norwegian slang and means cool
or great. The movie "Schpaaa" is about five boys between the age 12-16, who
lives in Oslo East. Drugs, skipping school, beating up people, robbing shops
and stealing is a part of their everyday life. I think the movie is really
great and very realistic.

SOUVENIR
1999 - USA - 74 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2
Director Michael Shamberg
Genre/Type Abstract Film, Avant-garde / Experimental
Music video director Michael H. Shamberg debuts with this experimental drama
about a woman who comes to terms with painful childhood memories. Orlando
(Stanton Miranda) is an expatriate American sports journalist living in
Paris. She is also slowly recovering from childhood sexual abuse from her
father and an incestuous relationship with her late brother. As she wanders
the streets on a rainy evening, she sullenly ruminates over her memories.
Both Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci play small parts in this film,
while legendary filmmaker Chris Marker provides computer graphics. Souvenir
was screened at the 1999 Mill Valley Film Festival.

Souvenir
Writer-director Michael Shamberg
ADVENTUROUS, maybe. Successful, not really. The detached images and
disembodied voices are only intriguing for a short while, and then tedium
sets in as we wait desperately for something to happen which makes any kind
of sense.
The main character is an American sports journalist living in Paris with a
deep-rooted obsession about her family, in particular her younger brother.
The younger brother is possibly dead, and possibly a team basketball player.
Her husband only speaks French, despite the fact that her French is fairly
awful, and wants to design cities that look like cemeteries. Her employer
feels a need to say everything twice, once in English and once in French,
presumably because, despite being English, her French is quite good. The
main character progresses in various stages from looking like a fairly
normal adult to an overgrown child, complete with white tights and pony
tails. Over the top of all this (as well as several shots of a rather
uninteresting Paris roundabout) is a conversation between a brother and a
sister touching on sex, death, jealousy, and distance.
If the images were stronger, or the dialogue somewhat less coy, (e.g. little
girl's voice singing "we are going to die") the effect might have been
different. As it is, the film doesn't quite cut it: it is merely pretty on
occasion, rather than stunning; irritating rather than fascinating. The
addition of purely superfluous images, such as the character miming at
excessive length a basketball player to a waiter, when in fact a) she speaks
French, and b) it's the same word in both languages, merely add to the
annoyance as well as bringing the film down to a standardised narrative form
which it would seem it was trying to avoid. Famous people are involved
(Kristin Scott-Thomas), which can be a good sign, but on this occasion one
merely wonders why.

EAST IS EAST
1998 - UK - 96 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating
Director Damien O'Donnell
Genre/Type Family Drama, Satire, Comedy Drama
East is East, a fast-moving comedy of mixed-race manners, is set in Salford,
England in 1970. It centers on the Anglo-Pakistani alliance of the Khan
family that is both claustrophobically cohesive and hopelessly
dysfunctional. In their over-crowded terrace house, anarchy erupts daily
with farcical energy. The Khan children, caught between the traditional
dogmatism of their Pakistani father and laissez-faire attitude of their
mother, have a lot of difficulties to follow their dreams of becoming
citizens of the modern world. Based on the award-winning stage play by Ayub
Khan-Din, East is East had great success in the theatres of London before it
was made into a film. Performances of Om Puri, an Indian actor of
international fame, and Linda Bassett are remarkable.

East is East
****
A bittersweet portrait of a mixed-race family set in England in the
free-wheeling early '70s, "East is East" does justice to a difficult
subject. George Khan ("My Son the Fanatic's" Om Puri), a Pakistani shop
owner long settled in Britain, insists that his grown children follow
Pakistani traditions, much to their displeasure. Though married for 20 years
to the Caucasian Ella (Linda Bassett), George is something of a hypocrite
when it comes to his own kin. Ignoring his own example, he demands each of
his children wed a Pakistani in a match to be overseen by him alone. The
first attempt at an arranged marriage ends disastrously: eldest son Nazir
(Ian Aspinall) jilts his prospective bride, is evicted from his parents'
house and cut off by his father for life.
As horrifying as that may sound-and there are worse punishments
ahead-director Damien O'Donnell never lets things get too dreary, largely
because the characterizations are so full and the dark scenes balanced with
plenty of humor. When his back is turned, George's daughter and six sons
flout traditions. They eat bacon, frolic with their Anglo neighbors, and
secretly pay homage to Christ, not Allah. Despite their father's efforts,
the kids don't see themselves as Pakistanis.
The film might not work as a comedy were it not for its nuanced
performances and thoughtful script. What saves George from being an
unsympathetic character is that despite his gruff and intractable manner, he
loves his wife and kids; he simply can see no other way of raising them.
Puri fleshes out the part with a considerable amount of warmth and emotion;
he has deep recesses of longing both for his homeland and a way of life that
has all but disappeared. Even when he strikes his kids, he comes off more as
a pathetic oaf who doesn't know how to communicate than a monster. And
because Linda Bassett plays Ella with fine, gentle strength, she softens
George's edges and renders him almost lovable. Writer Ayub Khan-Din and
O'Donnell have done a fine job opening up the piece from its original London
theatrical version, making good use of locations, adding characters and
using stylistic elements like subjective shots that accentuate varying
perspectives.

RETROSPECTIVAS

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN
1989 - Japan - 67 min. - Feature, B&W
AMG Rating 4.5 (High Artistic Quality, Cult Film)
Director Shinya Tsukamoto
Genre/Type Surrealist Film, Avant-garde / Experimental, Horror
Flags Graphic Violence
Keywords cyborg, worker
Plot Lines Cyborg (good vs evil), Monsters (transformation)
An hour-long feature from Japanese director Shinyu Tsukamoto, Tetsuo (also
known as Tetsuo: The Iron Man) combines hyperkinetic camerawork and
intensive makeup effects to tell a horrific, cyberpunk-influenced science
fiction tale about the intersection of man and post-industrial technology.
The central character is a Japanese salary man, an average office worker who
is transformed by a brief encounter with a metals fetishist, a man who has
purposefully implanted pieces of scrap metal in his body. The salary man
soon begins sprouting pieces of metal from various parts of his body, a
change which is accompanied by increasingly nightmarish visions and bizarre,
metal-filled sexual fantasies. As the man evolves into a strange hybrid of
man and machine, he also develops a telepathic connection with another of
his kind: the metal fetishist, who has been undergoing a similar conversion,
and may indeed be the cause of the salary man's transformation. The two
engage in a violent, destructive battle throughout the streets of Tokyo,
accompanied by an appropriately industrial soundtrack. Shot on a small
budget in 16 millimeter black-and-white, Tsukamoto reprised many of the
images and plot elements of Tetsuo in a higher-budgeted sequel, Tetsuo II:
Body Hammer.

TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER
1992 - Japan - min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3 (Cult Film)
Director Shinya Tsukamoto
Genre/Type Fantasy, Science Fiction
Keywords revenge, cyborg, kidnap, metamorphosis, skinhead
Plot Lines Cyborg (good vs evil@crimefighting), Goodguy-vs-badguy, Revenge
(for past injustices), Superhero-vs-evil
Set In Japan, Tokyo
A follow-up to the 1988 film Tetsuo (also known as Tetsuo: The Iron Man)
that is less sequel than more-expensive remake, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
revisits director Shinya Tsukamoto's vision of a post-industrial Tokyo where
man and machine have begun to merge. Tomoroh Taguchi still plays the title
role, although the first film's single salary man has been replaced by
family man Taniguchi Tomoo. When his child is kidnapped by a pair of
skinheads, Tomoo's stress and anger triggers his transformation into a
fearsome cyborg, a hybrid between a human being and a piece of high-powered
weaponry. His new body attracts the attention of the leader of the
skinheads -- who turn out to be cyborg mutants themselves. The leader
(portrayed by Tsukamoto) performs several experiments on Tomoo, which
accelerates his metamorphosis into an even more powerful, horrifically
deadly sort of industrial creature. This monster ends up warring against the
leader and his gang, leading to a series of heavily violent and highly
destructive battles. As with the first film, the plot is more metaphor than
narrative, serving as the background for a frantic series of dense,
technology-drenched images set to an industrial soundtrack.

CHRONOS
1993 - Mexico - 96 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 4
Director Guillermo Del Toro
Keywords antique, billionaire, device, elderly, eternal-life, nephew,
owner, vampire, wit, antique-dealer, offbeat
Plot Lines Immortality (complications of), Monsters (vampires)
Set In Mexico
This innovative, surreal variant on the classic vampire tale is the
directorial debut of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who garnered
international acclaim and several awards. The film tells the story of
elderly antique dealer Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi, in a role originally
written for Max Von Sydow) who, with his eight-year-old granddaughter Aurora
(Tamara Shanath), discovers an ancient artifact secreted within a statue
obtained from the estate of a 16th-century alchemist. Unbeknownst to Gris,
the device -- which resembles an ornate, gilded mechanical beetle -- houses
an immortal parasite which will grant eternal life to its host. Naturally,
there is a terrible price for this gift, which Gris is doomed to discover
after the object anchors itself to his body. He begins to develop an extreme
aversion to daylight, as well as an agonizing thirst for human blood. To
compound matters, dying millionaire Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook) has
learned of the device's existence -- thanks to an occult tome obtained from
its inventor -- and wishes to obtain it for his own use. To this end he
employs his vain, brutish nephew Angel (Ron Perlman) to retrieve it for him.
Angel's techniques are less than subtle, and he inevitably winds up killing
Gris in his futile search for the artifact... but death is not permanent for
the host of the Cronos, and he rises from the mortuary slab to reunite with
the long-suffering Aurora. Together they confront de la Guardia and his
nephew one last time, hoping to find a way to reverse the horrible process
before Gris suffers the same monstrous fate as the device's creator. This
simple, straightforward plot is given resonance by a rich, intriguing
mythology which emphasizes the grotesque, parasitic aspects of vampirism,
stripping away the romantic aspects of the myth to define the vampire as
essentially a highly-evolved form of parasitic insect -- which the Cronos
device itself clearly resembles. Del Toro too often resorts to rather
heavy-handed allegory -- the saintly Jesus Gris dies, descends into a "hell"
of indignity and base desires (exemplified by a nasty scene where he resorts
to lapping blood from a bathroom floor) and rises again to protect his
granddaughter from evil -- but still manages to anchor this wild fantasy at
a very sensitive, human level with the aid of excellent performances and a
low-key, non-exploitative approach.

LA MADRE MUERTA
1993 - Spain - 105 min. - Feature
AMG Rating 3
Director Juanma Bajo Ulloa
Ismael ( Karra Elejalde) is a thief who, as this thriller opens, is robbing
the home of a woman painter. When she unexpectedly returns while he is
riffling through her possessions, he kills her without a second thought. At
some point as he is escaping the scene, however, he discovers that the
painter's daughter has witnessed the whole thing. Ten year later, he spies a
young woman (Ana Alvarez) on the streets and feels certain that this is the
one woman who could put him into prison. He kidnaps her, only to discover
that she is permanently crazed, and has no capacity for doing much.
Nonetheless, he keeps her tied up in a bed upstairs, much to the irritation
of his girlfriend (Lio), who soon takes matters into her own hands.

THE ELEMENT OF CRIME
1984 - Denmark - 104 min. - Feature, Color
AKA Forbrydelsens Element (Danish title)
AMG Rating 3 (High Artistic Quality)
Director Lars von Trier
Genre/Type Future Dystopias, Detective Film, Post-Noir (Modern Noir),
Mystery
Artistic/ Production Styles Non-linear
Flags Sexual Situations, Profanity, Not For Children, Violence, Nudity
Keywords criminologist, detective, exile, girl, hypnosis, serial-killer
Plot Lines Post-Nuclear-Holocaust (survival of), Murder/murder-plot (by
serial killer), Serial-killer (kills little girls)
Set In Denmark
The Element of Crime combines two genres -- science fiction and murder
mystery -- with fitfully successful results. Years after a nuclear
holocaust, civilization has begun to reassert itself in small, isolated
European communities. One of these is plagued by a serial killer who preys
upon young girls. Ex-police officer Michael Elphick, forced to rely on his
wits rather than high-technology, tries to locate the killer. The bleakness
of the post-apocalyptic world is conveyed by the decision to lens the film
in sepia-tone.

CLEAN, SHAVEN
1993 - USA - 79 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 2.5
Director Lodge Kerrigan
In this psychological thriller, what at first seem to be the wholly insane
(and gruesome) self-mutilations of a madman who is also probably a murderer
are gradually revealed as the quite logical actions of a frantic man driven
by circumstances to incredible extremes. Peter Winter (Peter Greene) is the
madman in question, searching for his daughter on an island off the coast of
New Brunswick while attempting to evade capture by a persistent detective.

TOTO LE HÉROS
1991 - Belgium / France / Germany - 90 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 4 (High Artistic Quality)
Director Jaco van Dormael
Genre/Type Reunion Films, Tragi-comedy, Comedy Drama
Keywords aging, childhood, child, courage, destiny, family, fantasy, fire,
German, secrets, life, lost, man, mistaken-identity, neighbor, plans,
resentment, rival, show, time, identity-switch
Plot Lines Childhood (visions of/adventures of), Family-interaction,
Mistaken-identity (complications of), Switched-at-birth
Former circus performer Jaco Van Dormael made his feature-film directing bow
with the Belgian/French/German coproduction Toto Le Heros. The title
character is an fictional supersecret agent, idolized by a young boy named
Thomas. The lad aspires to become Toto when he grows up; but thanks to a
kaleidoscope of flashbacks and flashforwards, we know that he'll end up
ordinary and unfulfilled. The film hopscotches between the Three Ages of
Thomas: wide-eyed youngster, mediocrity-mired adult, bitter old man. The
elder Thomas has never gotten over his childhood traumas and hatreds. He was
always jealous of his wealthy boyhood friend, fantasizing that he and his
chum were switched at birth. At the end, the aged Thomas escapes from a
senior citizens' home and steals the clothes of his millionaire friend--an
act which leads to Fate dealing its final ironic blow.

CUBE
1997 - Canada - 90 min. - Feature, Color
AMG Rating 3 (Low Budget)
Director Vincenzo Natali
Genre/Type Future Dystopias, Psychological Drama, Science Fiction
Keywords policeman, escape, imprisonment, survivor
Plot Lines Escape (from captor/captivity), Imprisonment (consequences
of@escape), Imprisonment (consequences of@survival)
This low-budget science-fiction drama, winner of a 1997 Toronto Film
Festival prize for "Best Canadian First Feature," depicts the plight of a
group of people clad in prison-style uniforms and trapped in futuristic
cube-like metal cells. Their memories are hazy; no one can recall how they
got there. Alderson (Julian Richings) awakens in a cell, seeks an exit, and
arrives in an adjacent cube where he's sliced and diced. Former cop Quentin
(Maurice Dean-Wint) becomes the group leader, and he's challenged by
conspiracy theorist Dr. Holloway (Nicky Guadagni). Government worker Worth
(David Hewlett) remembers a past government link to the project. A discovery
that the cubes have numerical codes suggests study by math-student Leaven
(Nicole deBoer) while former thief Rennes (Wayne Robson) knows some escape
tricks. However, the extreme behavior of Kazan (Andrew Miller) becomes a
threat to their survival. Also shown at the 1997 Vancouver Film Festival.

[UMV]

Ah, pensei que que ias fazer criticas a filmes antes de os ver, mais uma
vez... :-)

A proposito, no 3 Kings entra o SPike Jonze, desta vez mesmo como actor e
com o nome dele!

>ANYWHERE BUT HERE

Entra a Lolita da maioria dos abutres deste NG...

> Dogma, Animal Farm Animada e Soth Park Maior do que já temos (big deal)

Serão todos estes daquelas coisas que só poderemos ver mesmo só no FAntas ou
podemos esperar que ainda passe por alguns sitiozitos por aí?

[Joao Luis]

UMV <um...@hotmail.com> escreveu na mensagem
news:86sqms$nfe$2...@duke.telepac.pt...

> Ah, pensei que que ias fazer criticas a filmes antes de os ver, mais uma
> vez... :-)

Aqui no NG sou muito clean .... agora

>
> > Dogma, Animal Farm Animada e Soth Park Maior do que já temos (big deal)
>
> Serão todos estes daquelas coisas que só poderemos ver mesmo só no FAntas
ou
> podemos esperar que ainda passe por alguns sitiozitos por aí?

O Dogma tem estreia marcada o South Park who cares ....

JL

[Joao Luis]

[Mário Valente]

Joao Luis <js...@mail.telepac.pt> wrote in message
news:86v1vm$jap$1...@duke.telepac.pt...

>
> UMV <um...@hotmail.com> escreveu na mensagem
> news:86sqms$nfe$2...@duke.telepac.pt...

> O Dogma tem estreia marcada o South Park who cares ....
>
> JL

Há muito boa gente que se interessa... Já há 2 anos que tenho esperança que
exibam a série nas nossas TV's e claro que queria ver o filme.

Mário Valente

[Joao Luis]

Por acaso tenho visto a versão brasileira do South Park no locomotion. É
engraçadinho mas daí a ser um grande filme de cinema vai um passo ...

Mário Valente <nop4...@mail.telepac.pt> escreveu na mensagem
news:87l8fg$33i$1...@duke.telepac.pt...

[Funktion]

E eu vou-me valendo dos dvd's região 1. Tenho o filme e os 6 dvd's de
episódios da série lançados (e tenho a 1-2 serie + especiais em cd-rom,
formato real video)...
Por falar na série do Trey Parker e do Matt Stone, alguem viu o filme deles
"Cannibal! The musical" no Fantasporto '99? Esse filme é de partir a moca...
A certa altura grande parte dos presentes estava no chão de tanto rir...

J.Bastos

Joao Luis <js...@mail.telepac.pt> wrote in message

news:87mo39$uo0$1...@duke.telepac.pt...

[Luis Canau]

"Joao Luis" <js...@mail.telepac.pt> escreveu:

>Por acaso tenho visto a versão brasileira do South Park no locomotion. É
>engraçadinho mas daí a ser um grande filme de cinema vai um passo ...

Ainda so' vi excertos da serie, incluindo em Alemao. Nao me parece mau. O
filme acho excelente. "Grande cinema"? Tendo em conta q se sustem em humor
baixo acho q e' um grande feito. Eu pelo menos ri-me imenso da primeira vez q
vi. Acho q vou comprar os episodios tb.

--
luis canau_____
e-mail: not > net_________
http://home.EUnet.pt/cinedie

[UMV]

UAU! Canau mete mais uma prá humildade, subtilmente, ''I can speak
german...''

[Carlos Canau]

UMV wrote:
>
> UAU! Canau mete mais uma prá humildade, subtilmente, ''I can speak
> german...''

Eu não o vi em lado nenhum a dizer que falava alemão... Lê lá melhor.

</canau

--

[Mário Valente]

Lena Martins <tirar.ist...@iname.com> wrote in message
news:ti34askusjlgs5nc8...@4ax.com...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Lu...@Canau.NOT (Luis Canau) escreveu:

>
> >Tendo em conta q se sustem em humor baixo
>

> Huuummm... que interessante. Ja' fiquei cheia de vontade de ver
> (not!).
>
> Lena

sorte a tua! :).... o humor baixo deles já me atingiu mortalmente
--
Mário Valente

[Joao Miguel]

Luis Canau wrote in message <38a25df6...@news.PT.KPNQwest.net>...
: O filme acho excelente. "Grande cinema"? Tendo em conta q se sustem em
: humor baixo acho q e' um grande feito.

Se tiver pelo menos metade do humor das canções que estão na banda-
sonora, posso preparar-me para um motim de diversão.

- joão

_________________________
favoritos neste momento
cinema: O Projecto Blair Witch
musica: Goodbye to the 20th Century - Sonic Youth

[Funktion]

Pessoalmente achei o filme muito porreiro, embora não tenha metade da piada
dos melhores episódios. Basicamente acaba por ser um "musical" muito marado,
cheio de piadas anti-canadianas e uma relação homosexual entre Satanás e o
Saddam Hussein...
A temática do filme gira em volta da censura americana (o que é curioso
tendo em conta que o filme também teve algums problemas com isso...).
Das músicas, há para tudo: desde uma das musicas mais contagiantes que ouvi
em anos ("Uncle Fucker") até a uma nova versão do "clássico" "Kyle's mom is
a stupid bitch"...
Merece um 4/5...
É pena que a série nunca mais chegue cá, ou melhor, de certeza que nunca cá
será exibida (tenho a impressão que iria "abalar" a nossa frágil
sociedade...; bastavam as anedotas sobre a igreja católica ou as mortes do
Kenny para termos uma grande polémica...)

João Bastos

Joao Miguel <jpmi...@mail.telepac.pt> wrote in message
news:87v13g$jim$1...@duke.telepac.pt...

[Luis Canau]

"UMV" <um...@hotmail.com> escreveu:

>UAU! Canau mete mais uma prá humildade, subtilmente, ''I can speak
>german...''

Mein Gott! Nein. Me not speakarr Gerrrman. Descontrai, va' la'. Eu "vi"
excertos da serie em Alemao. Zappei... E se falasse alemao, e se visse a serie
DOBRADA em alemao...? O q tinha isso a ver com humildade? Tinha era a ver com
pobres criterios ou com (demasiado) tempo livre.

[UMV]

Luis Canau escreveu na mensagem <38a48818...@news.PT.KPNQwest.net>...
>Mein Gott! Nein.

say what madafaca?

>Descontrai, va' la'.

Mas é isso que eu faço aqui, oras :oP

>Eu "vi"
>excertos da serie em Alemao. Zappei...

Não precisas de te justificar krido

>E se falasse alemao, e se visse a serie
>DOBRADA em alemao...? O q tinha isso a ver com humildade? Tinha era a ver
com
>pobres criterios ou com (demasiado) tempo livre.

yeah, baby... yeahhh, baby!!!
E se eu tiver demasiado tempo livre? O que é que isso tem a ver com o facto
de eu achar os teus posts a witsy bity pouco humildes? Isso não retira o
''Uau, ai está uma abordagem da qual eu nunca me tinha lembrado'' ou lá que
raio foi...
beijinhos e abraços krido.

[Luis Canau]

Eu tentei, eu tentei. Adeus. Ou diria auf wiedersen? (Ou la' como se escreve.)

[UMV]

quem não tem argumentos desconversa.