Merry moviegoing!

>> Our critics dole out the film cheer (and misery) for the season

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG, MATTHEW HAYS
and MARK SLUTSKY

Ali Sitting through this movie proved highly entertaining—there’s never really a dull moment, only mind-numbing boxing matches, hilarious press conferences and oddball performances (in particular Jon Voight as Howard Cosell). Michael Mann replays Muhammad Ali’s well-known life through a series of vignettes; it’s a choppy way of looking at things, but they’re so well told that the film’s not-entirely-conventional plotting works nicely. And to Mann’s credit, despite the fact that we know how the climactic “Rumble in the Jungle” played itself out, he still manages to muster a great deal of suspense.
I’m not terribly partial to Will Smith, but he does carry off Ali well here. I was not fully aware of the backroom politics that occurred with the Church of Islam, and that much was illuminating. I’m left feeling like I could almost use yet another cinematic take on this fascinating figure. (Why the hell not? There are certainly enough books and docs about him.) Oliver Stone, why not take the plunge? (MH)

SPIT: Squeegee Punks in Traffic Daniel Cross has created another thoughtful film on the issue of Montreal’s impoverished, and SPIT manages to provoke and inform while never feeling P.C. or earnest (thank God). The film allows the squeegees themselves to riff on their own stories, with telling results. It’s hard not to be saddened by the world of squeegees (especially in the rather rotten treatment they endure) but there’s also something inspiring about their resilience. (MH)

Kate and Leopold Believe it or not, this film isn’t as horrific as it looks. The plot, yet another time-travel thing, has been done before. Hugh Jackman plays a guy from another time who, through the magic of a portal (as per usual, it’s never really explained) ends up in contemporary New York, where he falls for go-getter Meg Ryan. In a truly hypocritical—and apparently unselfconscious—move, this movie disparages Hollywood and capitalism in general for all its audience and consumer testing (Ryan’s job is to oversee audience market testing, something which she learns is a nasty, cynical thing over time). A bit odd, coming in a film that clearly has been tested, retested and tested yet again; this thing is totally contrived as a chick movie spilling over with wish fulfillment for the frustrated female. Ryan can’t find the right guy. She has that modern-woman conflict thing with work and home. She’s bitter about ex. But sure enough, along comes a real man from another time, and he shows her what real chivalry (and a good fuck) is all about. The film has occasionally charming moments, but for the most part, this is utterly predictable, bland fare, the kind Ryan has become famous for. (MH)

The Majestic Of this movie, I will say this: it met my expectations. I expected it would stink, and sure enough, it did. Set during the McCarthy era, Jim Carrey plays a struggling writer who’s been blacklisted due to a meeting he once attended full of lefties. The studio wants to sacrifice him to the House Un-American Committee (HUAC), and Carrey loses his picture and his job. After a few drinks he drives home, and ends up having one of those accidents that lead to amnesia (the kind only ever witnessed in low-concept movies and TV shows like this).
Washed up on the beach, Carrey is rescued only to find the entire population of a town thinks he’s someone else, a war hero who’s come back to their town and his job running the local cinema, the Majestic. (Get it? He works in a movie house and this is a movie!) But poor old Carrey doesn’t remember a thing, and thus thinks they’re correct in their mistaken identity.
This is one colossal maudlin mess, a film which proves Carrey is following carefully in the career evolution of Robin Williams (from clown to sentimental slob). Carrey seems to think acting involves gazing glassy-eyed in the general direction of the camera, gulping occasionally and, in the final scene, evoking anger (the easiest emotion for an actor to feign).
Still, it’s interesting to see how a Hollywood studio film like this one digests McCarthyism (surely one of its darkest moments, if not its darkest moment by far) after all these years. Our hero wasn’t really part of any weird political movement, it’s explained, but rather he just happened to be at that meeting because he was after a pretty gal attendee. It’s easy to get cynical about a movie like this one, but it does get a few extra points (albeit small ones) for capturing the insanity and hypocrisy of HUAC. Still, it’s something better studied with a movie like Johnny Guitar, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Front. The Majestic also features Martin Landau and James Whitmore. (MH)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring The f/x are impressive, for sure, and Peter Jackson (Meet the Feebles, Heavenly Creatures) is without a doubt the man to handle them, but this epic movie, at close to three hours in length, feels too long and too overblown. It does warrant a critic’s choice, but I have to qualify that by saying I suspect it will primarily be of appeal to Tolkien freaks. Others, beware. Those unfamiliar with the plot will find it downright confusing (they should distribute flow charts on the way in) and as for the wee ones, the battle scenes are so violent I would think twice before taking the under-eight set. Still, this is without a doubt one of the most daunting tasks any director could take on, and Jackson should be congratulated for the successful bits here. Now, Jackson, please get back to based-on-a-true-story plots about matricide, and you’ll be No. 1 in my books again. (Little chance of that: all three Rings film were shot back-to-back over 16 months and will be released, one a year, for the next two years.) Ian Holm and Ian McKellen are standouts in the cast, as Bilbo and Gandalf respectively. I suspect this will please some, but won’t be the runaway hit backers were hoping for. Now what am I going to do with those 19 collectible figurines Burger King sent to me? (MH)

Jin-Roh Already familiar to the Fantasia crowd, this Japanese anime is another milestone on animation’s rough road to maturity and respectability. This isn’t so surprising when one notes that Jin-Roh was created and written by Mamoru Oshii. Best known for the astounding Ghost in the Shell, Oshii was also behind the Patlabor films, and his patient, thoughtful, sober vision permeates his latest.
Borrowing an idea from Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle, the film takes place in an alternate-history Japan, shaking off the damage incurred under 10 years of Nazi occupation (that’s right, the teams were different in the WWII of this universe). Social unrest is countered by frightening, heavily armoured shock troops called the Capitol Police, brutal and fascistic enough to give any WTO protester nightmares for months.
Things get complicated when CP officer Fuse hesitates in shooting a young girl, in fact a terrorist suicide bomber. His superiors become suspicious, and rightfully so, as Fuse is thrown into a crisis of conscience. As morally complex as most cartoons are facile, Jin-Roh pushes some hot buttons in a very sensible manner. (RB)

Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius Hot on the heels of Monsters, Inc. is this season’s second big computer animation blowout. A cookie-cutter kid’s adventure with occasional laffs, sure, but the animators certainly cracked their knuckles and went to town on this one. The story follows the titular James Isaac Neutron, who invests his pre-pube sugar-hubris into ridiculously complex inventions (virtual toothbrushing machines, an omnifunctional robo-dog, a girl-eating plant) before his parents, and those of every kid in Retroville, are kidnapped by evil egg aliens. Between Jimmy’s contraptions, the spectacular Retroland fun park (soon jerry-rigged into a goofball space armada) and the alien’s planet, the eye candy comes on fast and furious. Not particularly inspired but loads of vacuous, plastic fun. (RB)

The Shipping News This film gained a great deal of press simply because it was filmed in the Maritimes. It seems the folks out east were thrilled by the considerable star power of Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench and Julianne Moore. Spacey plays a man involved with a wayward woman, a selfish, drunken slutty type. They end up having a daughter together, and, after selling the seven-year-old into slavery for $6,000, mommy dearest ends up dying in a car accident. Spacey retrieves the child and hooks up with aunt Dench, and the three head out to Newfoundland where they attempt to pick up the pieces of their lives.
Lasse Halstrom directs, and though I loved My Life as a Dog, I must say I’ve been thoroughly put off by his more recent fare (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat) which I’ve found horrifically maudlin. Shipping News feels much better, but still doesn’t escape the contrived weepie trap. Though Newfoundlanders may thrill at seeing themselves up on the big screen (Moore must have spent weeks on that accent), some might also be miffed at the rather stereotypical caricatures that populate the film. There’s drunkenness, plenty of repression, a subplot involving incest and yet more drunkenness. And I know star power sells things, but it would have been nice to see a bit more Can-talent here. (Gordon Pinsent is wonderful, but there are others who could have worked well too.) (MH)

Super 8 Stories For years, Emir Kusturica has toured the Balkans with his irreverent No Smoking Orchestra. They make crazy music, they mock the politics of their region, they generally make trouble. (These are the fellows who supplied the wondrous score for Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat.) Montrealers were given the rare treat of having them perform at this year’s World Film Fest. (A feat that fest director Serge Losique deserves praise for.) With this film, Kusturica mixes actual concert footage, faux home movies in which we see band members in their time off, and general hijinx performed by the crew. Great fun. (This one screens at the Imperial so see rep listings for showtimes.) (MH)

A Beautiful Mind Ron Howard’s latest tells the true, if abbreviated and somewhat fictionalized, story of Nobel-Prize-winning games theoretician John Nash (played by Russell Crowe), a brilliant mathematician who spent the bulk of his life fighting schizophrenia. The film is set mostly in the ’50s, and the Cold War atmosphere makes a good fit for Crowe’s increasingly unhinged behaviour. Though it has a tendency towards the treacly, as befits the director, A Beautiful Mind is actually one of Howard’s better movies, even if it doesn’t really hold together all the way through, devolving as it does into the weepy. Credit must go to Crowe, in full pudgy, nebbish mode (recalling his role in The Insider), who definitely brings the story to life. Howard also mixes Nash’s work into the movie, allowing the audience to see what exactly “games theory” is—albeit, of course, a little dumbed down. Still, it adds dimension to both Crowe’s character and the movie as a whole. (MS)

Joe Somebody Tim Allen plays a wonderful, wonderful man trapped in corporate culture in this grown-up bully movie. One day he’s humiliated by a meathead (Seinfeld’s Patrick Warburton) in front of his excruciatingly precocious daughter; Allen, of course, must learn to win back his respect and his daughter’s respect and his ex-wife’s respect and his cute new friend’s (Julie Bowen) respect. Allen actually has a bit of sleazeball charm that’s only really been harnessed once (in Galaxy Quest); unfortunately, here his character is so nice and loving he’s practically the Second Coming. Boring but competently made, Joe Somebody isn’t absolutely atrocious, but isn’t worth watching, either. Jim Belushi contributes a somewhat humourous turn (amazingly!) as a Steven-Seagal-type ex-action movie star who teaches Allen some martial arts. (MS)

Open Your Eyes This film has become noteworthy for a couple of reasons: on its strength alone, director Alejandro Amenabar was handed Nicole Kidman and a budget for his 2001 hit The Others. As well, Open Your Eyes has been remade into the Tom Cruise vehicle, Vanilla Sky (with Penelope Cruz starring in both original and remake). This ’98 Spanish-French-Italian coproduction premiered at the Parc and returns there this month, where I strongly recommend catching it. Open Your Eyes is a smart, savvy, sexy little mindfuck of a movie, the kind of thing studios shy away from ’cuz it’s just too dang complex. (MH)

Brave Films, Wild Nights: 25 Years of Festival Fever It seems a bit insensitive of our local Cinémathèque to be celebrating 25 years of the Toronto Film Festival, but here it is, taking place this holiday season. I can’t imagine the reverse happening, for instance: the Ontario Cinematheque celebrating the World or New Film Fests? God forbid! Having said that, there are some worthy entries here, and looking them over, they do sting a bit. The series features loads of films which had their North American premieres at T.O., including Taxi Driver, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Decline of the American Empire, Le Confessional and The Limey, among others. Each film will be prefaced by one of the short films commissioned by the festival and made by well-known Canuck directors, including David Cronenberg, Anne Wheeler, Patricia Rozema and Don McKellar. (MH)

Shrinkage Finally, a Montreal filmmaker’s most excellent doc on the bizarre world of standup airs on CBC TV on Thursday, Dec. 27 at 7 p.m. The film features a single mom standup comedian who suffers from manic depression. She explores the highs and lows of this brand of performance art through interviews with Eric Idle, Mike MacDonald, Kathy Kinney and Christopher Titus, all of whom were captured at the Just for Laughs Comedy Fest. Shrinkage emerges as a thoughtful examination of the personality of standup comics by filmmaker Bobbi Jo Krals. (MH)<<

Jin Roh, Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Super 8 Stories and SPIT open Friday, Dec. 21. Kate and Leopold, The Shipping News, Ali and A Beautiful Mind open on Tuesday, Christmas Day. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is now playing. Open Your Eyes screens Dec. 28-29 at Cinéma du Parc. Brave Films, Wild Nights screens from Dec. 20-Feb. 3 at the Cinémathèque québécoise