Based on an 18th-century classic [novel by Choderlos de Laclos], updated pic is a glossy study of an immoral three who get their comeuppance.

A young diplomat (Gerard Philipe) and his wife (Jeanne Moreau) have found a perfect harmony. He allows her to have all the affairs she wants and she helps him in his conquests. Both seem content until love comes into this completely immoral household to bring on tragedy.

Film has fine lensing, production dress and mounting, but takes on a literary sheen as tale is spun out via the couple’s letters to each other. She sets her husband onto his 17-year-old cousin because the latter has snagged her present lover. But then comes a pure, virtuous young mother (Annette Vadim) and the hero falls for her.

Film is somewhat long and tightening would help. Philipe plays the eternal Don Juan in a pasty way and rarely elicits an understanding of his character and drive. But Moreau is perfect as the cat-like, steely wife who lives mainly off the emotions of others. Annette Vadim lacks the expression to make her role taking.

Though done in a mixture of styles, via satire, comedy of manners and drama, the film rarely settles on one plane.

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis (”Zohar”/”The Syrian Bride”) directs
this lyrical anti-war film that covers the June, 1982, Israel invasion
of Lebanon. It uses soccer as a bridge between enemy soldiers that can
possibly bring them to recognize they might also have other things in common.
The even-handed political story is based on an idea by Mr. Riklis and written
by Eyal Halfon.

After their squad is ambushed in Lebanon, Lt. Gallili (Sharon Alexander)
and reservist army Sgt. Cohen (Moshe Ivgy) of the IDF are captured by eight
retreating PLO fighters. The PLO soldiers, led by Ziad (Mohammed Bakri),
plan to take the valuable captives back to Beirut through the war-torn
countryside where the strife is still going on and trade them for PLO prisoners.
At the same time, the World Cup soccer games begin in Spain, an event sports-nut
Cohen had tickets for to root for Italy–the same team Ziad roots for.
Along the way Gallili is killed, and the ‘everyman’ Cohen is left alone
to deal with the brutal situation. 

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The prisoner and the captors have a distrust for each other, but
after airing out their differences and talking about themselves things
get less hostile. But it also shows how complex is the long-standing Arab-Israeli
conflict and how far apart are the sides even if the enemies begin to share
a grudging respect for each other. As the hostage situation builds to its
climax and they reach Beirut, the war truths hit home and show how destructive
is the war. 

Breaking no new ground as it makes its way through a minefield of
bitternesss, menace, irony and human bonding, it at least holds out some
hope that there’s a dim light at the end of the tunnel if both sides can
only see the humanity in each other. Riklis bends over backwards to remain
neutral, letting each side say what’s on their mind. He also lets the story
play out as tragically as it must, reminding us throughout that a brutal
war is taking place even though on radio the announcements of the war don’t
sound any different from how the soccer game is reported. 

The first screen version of Hecht and MacArthur’s intemperate-talking ingratiate oneself with set in a cynical newspaper world is, not surprisingly, rather less hilarious than Hawks’ definitive His Fiancee Friday or Wilder’s ’70s vulgarisation. The main predicament is that O’Brien, as Hildy Johnson, torn between his obsession for journalism’s glamour and his desire to marry, not indeed looks very interested in committing himself to either life; thus the dilemma at the heart of the theatre arts only just seems to make a difference, and it’s left to Menjou, polite, hard and mendacious, to yield b set forth the murkiness vigorous during his regrettably curt appearances as Walter Burns, the editor lacking all human qualities except ambition. Milestone’s direction, veering between stagey two-shots and fanciful but purposeless camera movements, doesn’t help either. But it’s still worth seeing, if just to hear the jokes which the Hays Code later vex an uninterruptedly to.

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"The TV Set" (THINKfilm) is a lightly amusing — not to mention spot-on accurate — behind-the-scenes yarn about an idealistic writer, Mike Klein (David Duchovny), who's written a pilot for a network comedy-drama he plans to call "The Wexler Chronicles," inspired by his brother's suicide.

His innovative piece is gradually watered down by Lenny (Sigourney Weaver), the iron-fisted, velvet-gloved president of the fictional PDN network.

At first full of praise and encouragement, she eventually comes to feel suicide is too depressing for the prime-time audience, and one by one all the elements so essential to Mike's original concept are whittled away. With pregnant wife Natalie (Justine Bateman) at home, Mike has little choice but to concede to every new demand.

His manager Alice (Judy Greer) and the empathetic but weak-willed British production head Richard (Ioan Gruffudd) are more concerned with pleasing Lenny than standing up for the beleaguered Mike. Adding to Mike's woes is an erratic leading man, Zach (Fran Kranz), whom Mike didn't want in the first place, whose idiosyncratic line readings drive Mike up the wall, and whose infatuation with leading lady Laurel (Lindsay Sloane) further sabotages the production.

Writer-director Jake Kasdan's perceptive satire on the television industry shows the lengths to which an artist is forced to compromise his vision, and that point is made in persuasive if low-key comic fashion, tinged with a genuine sadness.

Weaver's bravura turn avoids outright caricature but garners laughs in a role not far removed from reality. The same is true for the film itself. Lenny seems the soul of rationality but her decisions, like those of the other well-intentioned network executives, cheapen and undermine Mike's script at every turn.

"The TV Set" is small in scope, and its insider view may appeal most to those in the industry, but nonetheless it registers as a sharply perceptive gem.

The film contains repeated use of the f-word, in a satiric context to show the vacuity of the superficial characters, other crude words and expressions, and mild profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

certificate 18

Rating 9 evasion of 10

Shane Meadows' new film puts him firmly at the top of the pile of British filmmakers who are actually making films about Britain. Partly based on Meadows' own experiences as a skinhead in the Midlands backwater of Uttoxeter in the 1980s, This is England is an often hilarious and ultimately very moving indictment of the times seen through the eyes of a young teenager.

Thomas Turgoose stars - and stars is most definitely the right word - as Shaun, a cheeky thirteen-year-old grieving for the recent death of his father during the Falklands conflict. Living in a shabby council flat with a mother who dresses him in the fashions of the 1970s, Shaun befriends a group of skinheads at his school, and begins to find a new identity for himself.

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What Meadows is at pains to point out is that the original British skinheads were a multi-coloured mix of black and white, and Shaun finds himself under the wing of some of the gang's prominent members including the white Woody (Joe Gilgun) and the black Milky (Andrew Shin). Instead of terrorising the neighbourhood or seeking out racist victims, these skins are more likely to have a nice cup of tea while chilling out to some ska.

Shaun's brief idyll is shattered by the return to town of former gang-member Combo (Stephen Graham), who plays the outsider figure usually associated with Paddy Considine in earlier Meadows' films such as A Room for Romeo Brass and Dead Man's Shoes. Combo is also a skin, but one who has been radicalised by the NF in his recent stay in prison, and he has one thing on his mind: to convert the rest of the group to his new all-white way of thinking.

The set and costume design, accompanied by a blistering soundtrack, are already enough to make this a highly enjoyable affair. But what lifts Meadows' work to the highest level are both his script and the extraordinary group of young actors he has found. Turgoose delivers one of the best debuts in recent times, while Stephen Graham provides an uneasy mix of charm and terror as the group's chief tormentor. One of the best films of the year and not to be missed.

Paul Hurley

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Polish Wedding

A Film Review by James Berardinelli

Synergetic States, 1998
U.S. Pass out Date: 7/17/98 (limited), 7/31/98 (wider)
Running Period: 1:48
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Profanity, sex)
Mannered Aspect Correspondence: 1.85:1

Cast: Lena Olin, Gabriel Byrne, Claire Danes, Adam Trese, Daniel Lapaine, Mili Avital, Rade
Serbedzija

Director: Theresa Connelly

Producers: Julia Chasman, Tom Rosenberg, Geoff Stier

Screenplay: Theresa Connelly

Cinematography: Guy Dufaux

Music: Luis Enríquez Bacalov

U.S. Distributor: Fox Searchlight

In an age during which the traditional family is disintegrating under the pressure of modern-day
existence, Theresa Connelly's debut feature,

Polish Wedding

, illustrates that there are still
some households in which blood-ties are the most important thing. The film opens a window into
the ongoing chaos that marks the day-to-day activities of the Pzoniaks, a lower middle class Polish
American clan living in Detroit. Like most people, the Pzoniaks lie, cheat, and scheme, but there
are two common, family-fracturing words not in their vocabulary: "divorce" and "abortion." A
woman can cheat on her husband without fear that he will leave her, and, when an unmarried girl
becomes pregnant, there will be a trip to the altar, not to a women's clinic.

The Pzoniaks all live together in two adjoining single-family units. The walls are paper thin and
there's no privacy. Space is at such a premium that the four unmarried children (three boys and
one girl) must all sleep in the same room. For a moment's peace or a quick smoke, the only places
to go are the basement or the pickle closet. The matriarch and patriarch of the clan are Jadzia
(Lena Olin) and Bolek (Gabriel Byrne), who have been married for more than twenty years. Over
the span of their union, they have had five children (four boys), the oldest of which is now married
and has his own son. There are nine members of the Pzoniak family, and it's about to get even
more crowded.

Over the years, Jadzia and Bolek's marriage has become a thing of dull-but-comfortable
familiarity. She works days as a cleaning woman; he works nights as a baker. They rarely interact
and never have sex. He suspects that she's having an affair, and he's right. Jadzia has taken up
with a wealthy businessman, Roman (Rade Serbedzija), who treats her like a queen and satisfies
her physical needs. She wants nothing more from him, however, and when he offers, she refuses.

Jadzia and Bolek's only daughter is Chala (Claire Danes), a carefree and sensual teenager who
finds subtle ways of rebelling — smoking when she's not supposed to, sneaking out of the house at
nights, and flirting with any number of older boys. She's very close to her father, but there's an
emotional gulf between her and her mother. This year, Chala has been selected to lead the annual
procession for the Feast of the Virgin, an honor reserved for girls of the highest moral caliber.
Ironically, it's around this time that Chala elects to lose her virginity with Russell (Adam Trese), a
local policeman. The brief tryst, which begins with smoldering looks, results in a pregnancy.

Theresa Connelly, who clearly has a great deal of affinity for these characters, presents them in
warts-and-all fashion, rightfully certain that we will sympathize with them in spite of (or perhaps
because of) their faults. Connelly displays the skill of a veteran in the unforced manner in which
she weds comedy and pathos throughout the film. There are a few occasions when she strikes a
jarring note, such as a when Jadzia and her sons storm Russell's house, but these are exceptions.
For the most part, the whimsical and dramatic elements are seamlessly fused. Connelly also
understands the unique dynamics of a large family. Often, as we see with Jadzia and Bolek, it's not
love that keeps couples together, but loyalty and a sense of duty.

Nothing is simple in

Polish Wedding

, not even Jadzia's infidelity. She considers Bolek to
be a good man and a suitable "catch" (at one point, she relates the story of how, by becoming
pregnant, she trapped him into marrying her), but he feels unworthy and unloved. His lack of
sexual attention drives Jadzia into Roman's arms, but her unfaithfulness stings him deeply. Every
night when he suspects she's out with her lover, he sits by the window, gazing into the darkness.
Chala comments that he waits for her "like a dog," and he sadly agrees that we all wait for
someone in that fashion.

The major parts are all well-acted. Lena Olin brings both a sensuality and a haughtiness to her
role as Jadzia, one of the most forceful female characters to grace the screen this year. Gabriel
Byrne, abandoning his regular accent for an unsteady Polish one, plays Bolek as a likable (albeit
somewhat thick) sad-sack. Claire Danes, borrowing a page from Christina Ricci's "how to be a
teenage seductress" book, exudes a sexuality that, despite the occasional appearance of
coquettishness, is never innocent. Although Olin and Byrne have the most screen time, Danes'
character may be the most interesting.

Certainly, the American film industry has produced a large number of first- and second-generation
immigrant family stories. This is only natural, considering the ethnic diversity of our society.

Polish Wedding

uses the Pzoniaks' cultural heritage as more than a colorful backdrop —
it's an integral part of the plot, and that's one of the things that makes the film enjoyable. By
offering a slightly different flavor of the immigrant experience,

Polish Wedding

carves out
its own small niche in a crowded genre, and manages to entertain in the process.

© 1998 James Berardinelli

In this sequel to the universal THE SKULLS, Taylor Books (Clare Kramer) becomes the start female undergraduate to have a stab to gain access into the secret society of The Skulls. The ensuing entropy of blackmail and lies after all leads to a ghastly murder!

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A modern day comedy taking place in Havana, Cuba, that is laced with
supernatural implications. It is directed with artful flourishes by Fernando
Perez. The film captures the whimsical mood of those who live in Havana
by playing the staccato music of Bola de Nieve and Benny More.

The film suffers greatly in making every single thing that happens
pertain to a heavy-handed metaphorical symbol. The hallucinatory story
as a result is dumbed-down so much so, that it loses whatever strength
and vision it might have had.

The three main characters are linked through the orphanage and one
of them even has a mother named Cuba, that is, in case you don’t get that
their stories are metaphors about the economic and political situation
in Communist Cuba. These three Cubans internalize their personal struggles
and strivings for happiness, as the film intersects their tales by cutting
back and forth from one character to the next. The three will eventually
meet on Saint Barbara’s Day, December 4, in the Revolutionary Square, to
see what their fate brought them.

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The film is playfully narrated by the 18-year-old Bebe (Bebe Perez)
as if she was a teenage Guardian Angel to the three, who is seen in her
narration in different locations and even underwater. Why she is the narrator
is not clear, but she was an orphan with two of the other characters and
learned to whistle before she could speak which upset her teachers.

The film opens with a quote from John Lennon: Life is what happens
to you while you are busy doing other things. The film is heavy with quotes
like that one, as if these cute little slogans can really explain life
in Cuba.

The only one of the three stories that I found bearable, was the
one about the slender and attractive Mariana (Claudia Rojas). She is a
promiscuous ballerina who is so interested in getting the starring part
in Giselle that she makes a vow of chastity with God, that if she gets
the part she will never sleep with another man.

Mariana gets the part and her dance partner is a dream come true,
Ismael (Joan Manuel Reyes). This leaves her in a tormented state, while
he can’t understand why they don’t make love. She puts everything into
the dance and becomes Giselle, but is frustrated that she can’t be with
him.

Elpidio Valdes (Luis Alberto Garcia) is a scrappy young musician,
scam artist, and fisherman, abandoned by his mother Cuba, who is wracked
with guilt because he hasn’t lived up to her expectations of him. He even
has a tattoo on his back shoulder telling of his love for his mother. Elpidio’s
chance to change comes when he steals money from the bag of a tourist,
Chrissy (Isabel Santos), a Greenpeace worker with a shaved head who came
into Cuba on a hot-air balloon. He returns the bag with all her credit
cards but without the money and the two carry on a hot affair, as he brings
her fish every day to keep the romance going. When she is about to leave,
she tells him she will be back in a month to see him or he can leave with
her now to the United States. We know he has changed for sure, when he
burns out his tattoo for his mother and tells Chrissy that he stole her
money.

The most trite tale is of Julia (Coralia Veloz), a middle-aged do-gooder,
the disconsolate social aid to the elderly, who is subject to fits of yawning
and fainting spells set off by the word “sex.” Taken by her friend to consult
a psychiatrist, she uncovers a traumatic love affair in her past which
she has repressed for the last twenty years. The filmmaker gives Freud
the importance of someone just being discovered and repeating his theories
as if they were fresh instead of the cliches they have become to the Western
world.

The film lost its focus and painted an artificially whimsical picture
of Cuba, that was hardly relevant. Whatever pleasure there was came from
its splendid ballet numbers, the beautiful artistic framing of its shots,
and its bouncy music. But that was outweighed by its leaden symbolism.

IT ISN’T just any actress who can age 23 years convincingly ¿ and move you at every step of the way.

Meryl Streep? Sure, with an arm tied behind her back. But how about Michelle Williams? (Yes, I’m talking about that kid from "Dawson’s Creek" and the throwaway comedy "Dick.") In "Me Without You," a decades-spanning drama about growing up while growing out of a suffocating friendship, Williams does just that, playing a British woman who blossoms in slo-mo, starting out as a mousy teenager in the punk-steeped 1970s and only arriving at adult independence in the new millennium, all the while turning in a performance that is seamless, canny and artistically mature.

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Not bad for a girl from small-town Montana who just turned 22.

As directed and co-written by Sandra Goldbacher ("The Governess"), who has called the film semi-autobiographical, "Me Without You" is the story of Holly (Williams) and Marina (Anna Friel), childhood friends so close they refer to themselves as "Harina," a hybrid name whose asymmetry mirrors the imbalance in their relationship. "Some people are pretty people," says Holly’s mother, "and some people are clever people."

Fleshy and bookish, Holly is clearly in the thrall of Marina, the popular, thin and streetwise party girl. Oh, Marina may envy Holly’s Jewishness, finding it exotic when compared with her blandly gentile absence of religion, but otherwise Marina is the gravitational force here, setting the agenda, issuing orders, stealing boyfriends ¿ notably Kyle MacLachlan as a sleazy college professor ¿ and undertaking other casual betrayals so numerous they leave Holly numb.

For a while. It’s a long time coming, but when Holly finally has her epiphany and angrily tells Marina off, in a scene that will be painfully familiar to anyone who’s had to cut a destructive friend loose, we are so into Holly’s character that she feels like an extension of ourselves.

With on-screen chapter titles and era-defining musical selections ranging from Wreckless Eric to the Cowboy Junkies, "Me Without You" feels like a late-baby-boomer family album. The memories are fond and embarrassing.

In addition to the obvious allusion to Holly and Marina’s gradual separation, there are a couple of additional meanings to the film’s title. On a second, perhaps superficial, level, it can be read as referring to Holly’s longing for Marina’s older brother Nat (Oliver Milburn), a mostly unrequited love that forms a kind of spine for the film’s plot. On yet a third level, "Me Without You" suggests not merely Holly’s journey toward becoming her own person but Marina’s definitive emptiness.

"There’s no me without you," whines Marina during the big "divorce" scene with Holly. It’s a telling comment from someone who feels she doesn’t exist without Holly to tell her so. And it’s a measure, ironically, of Holly’s wholeness. In the end, it’s Holly, not Marina, who has real, solid presence, after a lifetime of living in the orbit of another.

ME WITHOUT YOU (R, 107 minutes) ¿ Contains obscenity, drug use, sexuality and partial nudity. At the Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle 5.

Released during the early months of 2002 to capitalize on Denzel Washington´s Oscar intensify by reason of his part in 2001´s "Training Day", "John Q." powered its way to $71 million at the North American casket organization. The actor´s Oscar crushing and the film´s surprise commercial ascendancy (box-aid prognosticators did not believe that a story fro one man´s fight against the health-care plan to get his son a heart displace would invent audiences´ fancy) combined to affirm Washington´s outstanding man status. Word-of-mouth probably gave the cinema hammy legs because Washington´s star power and the filmmakers´ involving call gain for an always engrossing eye. In any way, despite a very promising start, the motion picture quickly descends into a hodgepodge of clichés, false climaxes, fanciful coincidences, and unbelievable changes of pump (no pun intended).

This is the substitute New Line film in a tier that I cause reviewed in which the male lead of the movie takes on "the system", the other one being "I Am Sam". Both screenplays start with a decent man being iniquitous-treated by officious personnel who don´t seem to be sympathetic to the hard fate of the unlucky. Yet, as both stories proceeding, the heroes become more and more irrational, irritating, and downright unlikable while the defenders of "the system" seem more and more reasonable, good-natured, kind-hearted, and sympathetic. Incidental, huh?

In "John Q.", Washington plays a father who´s been downgraded from 40 hours a week to 20 hours at importune due to the monetary aura. His wife´s car has been repossessed by the bank, and his insurance coverage has been downgraded due to his newly part-time status. Thus, when his son collapses on the baseball deal with from an enlarged heart, John Q. Archibald finds himself unable to pay benefit of a heart transplant operation that costs at least $250,000.

The initially vigorous screenplay tackles massive issues, including health-care availability to the underprivileged, collusions between insurance companies and health-care providers, and healing rather than innocently stabilizing the sick. The movie attempts to solve John Q.´s problems by demonizing everyone (except by reason of his family) and having him hold an emergency room captive until somebody gets a applicable basics into his son´s strongbox opening. Tireless performances by Washington, James Woods (as the chief cardiac surgeon), Anne Heche (as the hospital´s chief administrator), Robert Duvall (as the pledge negotiator), and Flash Liotta (as the police chief) are undermined by the cheap shots taken at their characters. For example, the police chief behaves kidney any man in his position would do, but for no apparent rationality other than to make him into an ugly, the design has him mention that it´s an electing year. There´s been NOTHING prior to this moment that indicates that the police chief is a political opportunist, so why would a politically savvy individual entangle himself by admitting that it´s election year?

Ultimately, we uninterruptedly up watching a movie that betrays its own good intentions and professional craftsmanship by degenerating into a melodrama where everyone, including John Q.´s hostages, comes to jibe consent to with his opinion. Sure, Duvall´s surety intervener disagrees with John Q.´s methods, but he seems to do so barely because his job requires him to squeeze a stern handle at terrorist actions. You know, there´s something called the "Stockholm Syndrome", where captives identify with their captors. By its end, "John Q." feels like it suffers from its own story of "Stockholm Syndrome", falling under the sway of a charismatic, persuasive, but egregiously wrong sort.

Following in the footsteps of "Thirteen Days", "15 Minutes", "Blow", and "Countrywoman Hour 2", "John Q." arrives on DVD with the trappings of New Line´s infinifilm series.

Video:
Altered Line´s video transfers just get better and better. Sporting a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen form, the DVD´s video is near-flawless. A well-lit lighting pattern dominates the movie, so everything looks clear, well-rendered, natural. I didn´t notice any start defects (physical impairments to the film choice of words itself), and I didn´t notice any glaring problems with the video compression. Were it not for the fact that I´ve seen the digital miracles achieved by "Irrevocable Fantasy" and Pixar´s movies ("Fake Story", "Toy Story 2") or the burnished beauty of "Pearl Harbor", I would´ve rated this video presentation a "10".

Audio:
There are 3 primary audio tracks on the DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1 English, DD 2.0 surround English, and DTS 5.1 English. "John Q." isn´t an action extravaganza, but the DVD offers a beautifully wide soundstage. The music score fills the room courtesy of very active upraise speakers, and rich cello sounds exude from the subwoofer. There are completely a few panning and directionality effects, and everything sounds crisp and eliminate. This is as opportune as a small-scale stage production sounds on DVD.