Brian McCaughey’s blog

Not quite a line for line remake, but close enough to count in horseshoes.

Grade:

D+


Stars:

Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Mia Farrow,Mia Farrow, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick


Writer(s):

David Seltzer


Director:

John Moore


Rating:

R


Distributor:

20th Century Fox

By

SEAN ELLIOTT

, Associate Editor

Published
6/6/2006

THE AUGURY

brings to mind a nanny hanging herself, the Devils son dressed all in black, and extremely ingenious ways of dispatching main characters.
This new version of the veil has all of these elements, but begs the question of why did this film over have to be remade?
The silent picture is basically a beat-to go to-take it on the lam remake of the 1976 perturbation suspense classic.
The gag revolves around an American diplomat (Liev Schreiber) whose wife (Julia Stiles) loses their son in childbirth.
A act on is struck between a priest and the diplomat to replace the dead baby with a pamper whose mother died in childbirth with no one the wiser for the swap.
The neonate of course turns out to be the son of the Devil, and several deaths including most of the greatest characters terminate, and the film closes opened ended enough to remake the other

OMEN

sequels.
Manager John Moore does a attentive calling of updating the earliest mist, while keeping the feel of the original.
There are plenty of jump scares, and gory deaths to to awe fans, and there is enough of a regular storyline to charm non-horror fan audiences.
The screenplay was written by the original

OMEN

paragraphist David Seltzer, so this is probably the estimate the photograph is almost line for the assemble the exact same possession as the original.
The cast does an ample job in the moving picture.
Schreiber who is a extraordinary actor, seems wooden and somewhat out of place within the story.
His reactions to horrific revelations and situations seem less than one would believe if a person were to find loose they had been raising the Antichrist.
Julia Stiles making the leap from teenybopper movies and romantic comedies is so-so as the progenitrix who is persuaded that something is reverse with Damien and that he is not her son.
The biggest problem is that Stiles still looks 17 and in the five-year acquire knowledge of from the beginning of the movie to the fundamental story, she doesnt age a age.
Mia Farrow joins the cast as the nanny from Hell, who is sent to help guide Damien on his progress to demonic power. It is unclear whether or not Farrow is a spectacular actress, or is just acting out what years of being married to Woody Allen have done to her be careful of.
Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is ok as Damien the son of the Devil.
The firsthand Damien in the 76 version looked creepy without trying.
This latest actor (it is unclear if he was directed to do this or came up with it on his own) spends almost the aggregate movie glowering and scrunching up his appear before every schedule he is up to no good.
This unfortunately creates a indifferent kind of comical air over the seal and detracts from the creepiness of the movie.
David Thewlis is the strongest actor in the film, and his is the lone peculiarity that is compelling reasonably to make you want to watch the entire movie.
But even Thewlis acting talents non-standard like misused in this slavish re-telling of the original film.
The film is ok, but dont expect it to go great guns at the box backing.
This is a remake without a shining motivation as to why it had to be done.
There are no precise truly shots that could not be done in 1976, and the unhurt style of the movie level suggests a 70s empathize with and note.
It has its share of scares, but this talkie is almost more of a unusable than the flying hunk of crap

THE WRITING ON THE WALL III: THE FINAL WRANGLE

.
The end significance of this movie is tedious boredom, and unfortunate pacing in between within reason entertaining death scenes and dream sequences.
Horror fans should pray that this cinema doesnt do manifestly passably to colour Fox wish for to revisit the other

OMEN

movies as well.

5931-5951

Reader Comments

Sandy Beam

from

Mount Airy, NC

sez….

I meditate on the movie itself was o.k; the same as I reflection adjacent to the first. You destitution a fantastic writer that can strengthen upon the revelations and the fact that 'Damien' will not be destroyed until after the tribulation and mould battle between good and evil. I think that if it were rewritten to bring in the facts of antichrist, it will demonstrate better the whole and could mayhap lift off place in one movie. One 'hell of a movie'. You know. The marred coming of Christ can be bonny exciting.

6/10/2006 1:38:35 PM

wendy

from

Atlanta, Ga

sez….

I also over this talkie was about proper like the premier but that is what a remake is. I think Julia Stiles did an awesome felony and it had some legitimate creepy scenes in it. They could of picked a better Damien i regard as but overall the large screen was real virtuousness….i loved it and would recommend it to Harbinger fans

6/8/2006 6:29:56 AM

flicker

from

miami

sez….

i dont think the movie was the best in the world but it kept me in suspence…and i kept wanting to see more…even although some of the horrid sence are a bit…predictable…there were some that made me little short of pounce out my estate…despite reasoning you gave it a D+ i would advocate this movie…cant hold on for the sequels.

6/7/2006 8:50:25 PM

EASTWICK

FLASH FORTH

THE ENTHUSIASTIC WIFE

THE JAY LENO BESTOW MAKE AN EXHIBIT

MELROSE RANK

NCIS: LOS ANGELES

THREE RIVERS

TRAUMA

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
(©) 1999-2009 Tense Entertainment

2

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE:

Young Noah (Connor Maselli) finds himself at loose ends in 'Around the Bay.'

Father's Day

Local director Alejandro Adams makes splash at Cinequest with intelligent family drama 'Around the Bay'

By Richard von Busack

ONE PHRASE used to describe the films at this year's Cinequest (which starts Feb. 27) is "character-driven." Too often, what that phrase means is unlikely stories put across (or not) by the power of acting. Local director Alejandro Adams' shot-in-Los Gatos feature

Around the Bay

(which screens March 1, 4 and 8 at the festival) is more of a director-driven film. This remarkably talented newcomer make a compelling story out of well-chosen images and unsaid, unheard or overheard words. Adams shows that he's that rarity among beginning filmmakers. He is someone who understands all the tools of the cinema, such as the importance of the angle of light, the power of sound editing, the direction of a glance and the deft use of a blackout.Most of

Around the Bay

takes place in the house, guest house and back yard of one of our region's modest local multimillion-dollar upper-middle-class homes. The house is shady, with bamboo and very old fig and oak trees and a small swimming pool rimmed with natural stone. In the first scenes, Noreen (Katherine Darling) is leaving all this. She is wordlessly packing up. Her live-in, Wyatt, has just lost his job. Wyatt is played by Steve Voldseth, a Campbell tax attorney–turned-actor (and turned very successfully, too). In the days to come, the not-young executive is absorbed with his financial troubles. He barely seems to register the presence of his 5-year-old son, Noah (Connor Maselli), a cute child but a true handful.

We cut to Wyatt's 21-year-old daughter from his first marriage. She is Daisy (Katherine Celio), a lovely, rootless girl living in another state. Daisy gets word from her father, asking her to come live with him and mind the boy. Noah is technically Daisy's flesh and blood, but minding him is a strain: the kid knows no boundaries or discipline. Some of this must be due to Wyatt's abstraction. Even when he's there, he's not there. On a field trip with Noah, Daisy makes tentative friends with a fellow book reader, a Russian immigrant (Michael Umansky). And then Noreen decides to return to the picture …

Adams exhibits superb control of his actors, yet there's nothing but fresh, semi-improvised performances here. Though

Around the Bay

is an intimate film, this is no small story. The title is apt. Though the action takes place in Los Gatos and uses local locations such as the CalTrain, Leigh's Books and Karin's Bakery, this tale could take place anywhere around the San Francisco Bay, from Petaluma to Scotts Valley. Underscoring this story of fatherly abandonment is the vast influx of money into the Bay Area and the struggle to direct that flood. The visual tension in this film comes the difference between the serene Japanese-themed living spaces and the emotion-killing pressure on the people who live in them. Voldseth's first-rate performance and Adams' direction match the much-praised exposure of soul-barrenness in

There Will Be Blood

, with none of the attendant melodrama. This is exactly the kind of film one hopes to discover at Cinequest.

AROUND THE BAY (Unrated; 106 min.), a film by Alejandro Adams, shows March 1 and 8 at 7:45pm at San Jose Rep and Mach 4 at 4:15pm at Camera 12 in San Jose. Cinequest takes place Feb. 27–March 9. See cinequest.org and www.metroactive.com for details. (FULL DISCLOSURE: Metro is the official print-media sponsor of the festival.)

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Training Day (2001)
Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger, Harris Yulin,
Raymond J. Barry, Cliff Curtis, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray.
Screenplay by David Ayer. Directed by Anthony Fuqua. 120 minutes.
Rated R, 3.5 stars (out of five stars)

A few years ago, while reviewing a Denzel Washington film where his
character falls on hard times, I expressed doubt whether he could ever
credibly play a bad guy. The charismatic actor is such a natural Boy
Scout, I speculated, that portraying true evil might simply be beyond
him. Was I ever wrong. In "Training Day," Washington pulls out all the
stops and delivers a hell of a performance. And when you see the film,
you'll understand why "hell" is such a fitting word. Written by David
Ayer and directed by Anthony Fuqua, "Training Day" grabs you by the nape
of the neck and hauls you through a contemporary nightmare. While the
ending suffers from an overload of coincidences and contrivances, the
movie still packs a wallop as it asks the question: Can honorable men
deal with the worst of humanity on a daily basis without being
corrupted?

Ethan Hawke (or as I've always thought of him, the wince-meister) plays
Jake Hoyt, a Los Angeles cop out to become detective. To that end, he
tries to join an elite squad led by Alonzo Harris (Washington), an
undercover officer legendary for his effectiveness. The hitch is that
Jake has only one day to prove his worthiness to Alonzo.

The 13-year veteran narc tears into the kid immediately, challenging his
straight-arrow training. "This is street justice," he declares. "It
takes a wolf to catch a wolf… It's ugly, but it's like that." Within
minutes, Alonzo bullies Jake into smoking a joint laced with a variety
of chemicals. Stoned out of his mind, Jake tries to keep his bearings as
Alonzo tours the grimmest parts of the city, introducing him to one
incredibly dangerous character after another.

Even within his drug haze, the boy soon realizes that Alonzo is not
merely an officer that plays fast and loose with the rules - he's a
full-fledged rogue cop willing to do anything to get what he wants.

Some of the most harrowing moments take place in a neighborhood
completely under the control of thugs. Alonzo lives there, convinced he
is respected by his brutal neighbors due to his ability to work the
system. In fact, they loathe the man and put up with him solely because
of his badge and gun.

Taking place over the course of a single day, "Training Day" builds
momentum and never backs off. The film creates and maintains a sense of
genuine danger. As the proceedings grow ever more dark, you begin to
wonder if the key players can possibly survive the day. Until the last
15 minutes, that is, when the story wraps up too quickly and in far too
pat a fashion.

Regardless, "Training Day" is one of the stronger action/character
studies to be released by a major studio in quite a while. Those able to
withstand the intensity and violence will be rewarded with solid acting
by Ethan Hawke and a towering performance from Denzel Washington, an
artist who still has the capability to surprise.

© 2001 Ed Johnson-Ott

==========
X-RAMR-ID: 29694
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 252614
X-RT-TitleID: 1110027
X-RT-SourceID: 591
X-RT-AuthorID: 1099

At the origination of September, 2001, Elliot (Nick Nolte), an American C.I.A. cause holding cap encrypted information on the unhesitating approaching of the circle, disappears. His sole aim was to pay his daughter Orlando (Sara Forestier), whom he abandoned ten years before. Irene (Juliette Binoche), a French secret agent who used to idle with him, and David (Tom Riley), his adoptive son, will employees him and lead the girl to her establish. Chased by William Pound (John Turturro), a strangely poetic psycho, they are caught up the dangers of international espionage from Paris to Venice in an essay step down to Elliot by September 11, 2001.

Drama. Starring Sally Field, Ben Chaplin, Julianne Nicholson and Clea
DuVall. Directed by Steve Stockman. (R. 97 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Anyone in the mood for a film about caring for a parent with a terminal
illness should rent "The Barbarian Invasions" or "One True Thing'' — both
extraordinarily moving re-creations of a wrenching experience that is sadly
part of the life cycle. "Two Weeks" attempts to tell a similar story, but,
although well intentioned, has the superficial gloss of a TV movie of the
week.

The cast, led by Sally Field as a mother dying of cancer, fails to make
their characters believable. Much of the problem is the broad way they've been
written. The four offspring are so predictable that from the moment each
arrives at Mom's cozy suburban home in North Carolina, you know exactly how he
or she will respond to every medical crisis.

Attempts at black humor, although not unrealistic during such a trying
time, fall flat. Far worse than not laughing at the jokes, you're unlikely to
be moved to tears at sad moments. Filmmaker Steve Stockman, directing his first
feature after a career in commercials, has said "Two Weeks" is loosely based on
what he and his siblings went through before their mother's death. But he
proves unable to delineate the universality of his experience.

Stockman also shows bad judgment in having the oldest son, Keith (the
British actor Ben Chaplin, who hasn't drawn a good role in Hollywood since "The
Truth About Cats and Dogs''), be a film director. It gives the endeavor the
whiff of a clunky first novel that's too obviously autobiographical.

In the opening scene, Keith has persuaded Mom to sit in front of his video
camera and hopefully talk candidly about herself. Clips from his film within
the film are interspersed throughout, serving a couple of functions. The
primary one is to show Field still looking good — dressed in bright blue and
as perky as she was as Forrest Gump's mom — while in scenes before and after
she appears apparently in no makeup with tubes piping drugs through her veins.
The other point presumably is to learn something about this woman who inspires
such devotion from her kids. But her responses to her son's questions are
vague. Asked why she divorced their father, she replies, "I don't know."

Field's strongest moments are with Julianne Nicholson as her only
daughter. The actresses communicate a kind of girlfriend relationship between
their characters. Their moments together have a sweetness lacking in the rest
of the movie. Clea DuVall has the thankless role of the daughter-in-law from
hell, who finds a way to avoid being of any help, refusing to even bundle up
the laundry because she hasn't had her morning coffee. Such an unreasonable and
belligerent attitude at a time of crisis contributes to the movie's distancing
air of unreality.

For "Two Weeks" to work, you have to be invested in the characters.
Stockman's failure to bring them to life makes it hard to care about the death
in this family.

– Advisory: Tough-to-watch scenes of medical procedures.

– Ruthe Stein

'Puccini for Beginners'

Romantic comedy. Starring Elizabeth Reaser, Gretchen Mol, Justin Kirk and
Julianne Nicholson. Directed by Maria Maggenti. (Not rated. 82 minutes. At Bay
Area theaters.)

"Puccini for Beginners" was written and directed by Maria Maggenti, who
wrote and directed "The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love" from
1995, about two lesbian teenagers. Maggenti also wrote the screenplay for the
1999 Kate Capshaw picture "The Love Letter." Like those two previous efforts,
"Puccini for Beginners" is literate and sensitive, characterized by witty
dialogue and smart, emotional two-person encounters.

In "Puccini for Beginners" Maggenti takes a stab at a screwball romantic
comedy, with Elizabeth Reaser as a lesbian novelist who, in the aftermath of a
painful breakup, gets involved with a woman (Gretchen Mol) and also with a man
(Justin Kirk), not knowing that these two were, until recently, engaged to each
other. We know it, though. In many ways, this is a winning picture, thanks to
its family resemblance to Maggenti's previous work. But there's a drag on this
film, and that's the character of the protagonist, Allegra. She's just not a
nice person, which could have been OK, except it seems as though she's supposed
to be.

It's just hard to sympathize with or even have much respect for someone
who, while purporting to be an artist, spends her entire life taking the subway
back and forth between sexual assignations. In a sense, a comedy like this
depends on our caring whether our heroine gets busted: It's funnier if we have
a reason to worry that one of her lovers will find her out. But what's to worry
about? She doesn't really care about either of them. Meanwhile, the people with
whom she's involved are thoroughly earnest, sincere and in love. If anything,
we hope that these two find her out, so that they can stop being involved with
this callous, uninterested lover.

This is not to say Allegra is repellent. We understand why she does what
she does. It's just that, in the stakes of the story, as created by Maggenti,
she really has nothing to lose, and so we have no reason to watch.

We have no reason not to watch, either. Maggenti is an appealing writer,
and it's easy and enjoyable to float along in the world of this film —
modern-day New York City — listening to the people talk, watching them go
about their lives. On balance, I like this movie, and I like most of the
actors. Reaser I'm not so sure about. Allegra is the movie's flaw, and it's
hard to say if the character's coldness is entirely a function of the script or
has something to do with a certain ungiving quality in Reaser's performance.

But Kirk and Mol show themselves, as usual, to be comically astute,
skilled performers. Both are excellent listeners; they react intuitively and
spontaneously and have great expressive faces. It's tempting to say they act
rings around Reaser, but they do have much better parts.

– Advisory: This film contains sex talk and sexual situations.

– Mick LaSalle

'Glastonbury'

Documentary. Starring David Bowie, Radiohead, Coldplay, Velvet Underground,
David Gray, Scissor Sisters, Björk, Cypress Hill, many others. Directed by
Julien Temple. (Rated R. 138 minutes. At the Lumiere.)

If Woodstock had only attracted a few thousand patrons the first
year, but somehow stumbled forward, continuing to grow and adapt to the
ever-changing rock music world for the next 35 years, it might have been
something like England's Glastonbury Festival.

In the heart of the English countryside, a Somerset farm on hallowed
ground, near the supposed burial place of both King Arthur and the Holy Grail,
farmer Michael Eavis has watched these annual pagan rites grow from a few
hippies in his field to a tent city of 150,000 that descends every year from
all over the British Isles.

Filmmaker Julien Temple, probably best known for his Sex Pistols films,
has put together a documentary on this remarkable gathering of tribes. His
film, "Glastonbury," like the festival it documents, is full of vitality and
music and, at the same time, is a little wobbly, meandering and too long.

A procession of popular British acts that are less influential on this
side of the Atlantic — the Prodigy, Faithless, Babyshambles, Morrissey, the
Chemical Brothers, Blur and Pulp — build to climactic performances by
Coldplay, Radiohead and David Bowie, who has made two appearances at the
festival 30 years apart. As with the festival itself, the music often seems
little more than backdrop to the enveloping festivities.

Temple stitches together footage he shot in recent years with previous
documentaries made in the '90s and '70s, along with other pieces of found
footage. Altogether, 900 hours of film were collected for the nearly 2 1/2-hour
movie. Refusing to spoon-feed the story to his audience, Temple tumbles
together the backstory, the logistics and the performances into a nonlinear
narrative that undoubtedly echoes the chaos of the actual event.

After Eavis first put on the festival and lost money in 1970, the
production was assumed by a hippie collective that included Arabella Churchill,
the late prime minister's granddaughter. The 1971 concert was filmed by
director Nicolas Roeg, who had been the second-unit photographer on "Lawrence
of Arabia," responsible for all those desert scenes, and also made well-known
features himself such as "Performance" and "The Man Who Fell to Earth."

The festival's struggles to grow are openly portrayed, from the skirmishes
with the "travelers," a Gypsy caravan that staged a competing festival at
Stonehenge in the early '70s, to the erection of a controversial wall around
Eavis' 150-acre farm to foil gate crashers. Eavis himself conducts much of the
film's guided tour of the festival.

Glastonbury now not only attracts more than 150,000 camper-concertgoers
every year, but the proceedings are also broadcast live all weekend by BBC-TV,
co-producer of the "Glastonbury" movie. Surrounded by this countryside rich in
Arthurian and theological lore, the festival has always revolved around
countercultural themes of ecology and politics and has worked to raise funds
and awareness for several important social action groups over the years. It has
also taken place many times in slushy mud occasioned by seasonal downpours.

Director Temple is the exact guy for the job. A young filmmaker who broke
into the scene with the original Sex Pistols feature film, "The Great Rock 'n'
Roll Swindle," he has done cunning rock videos with everybody from Mick Jagger
and Bowie on down. Mindful of the festival's lasting legacy and worldwide
impact, he spent five years planning and shooting the movie.

While the Glastonbury Festival may be somewhat obscure to American
audiences — although Burning Man is a direct descendant of Glastonbury and
Glastonberry is now a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor (brownie bits standing in
for the mud in the mosh pit) — the documentary provides a warm and witty,
detailed look at this parallel universe.

– Advisory: Lots of hippie nudity, male and female. Plus lots of pot
smoking and psychedelic drug use and individuals under the influence. Also
graphic scene of sewage being collected.

– Joel Selvin

"One of the truly great war
films."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

An exciting and uplifting true WWII story about Brit heroes that
gives a faithful and detailed account of their deeds in the spring of 1943
that helped shorten the war, as it reduced the Nazi capacity to carry on
their war machine. The no-nonsense black-and-white film was the biggest
boxoffice hit of 1955 in England, and the critics loved it. 

Michael Anderson ("Shake Hands with the Devil"/"Operation Crossbow"/"1984")
directs it with a realistic verve in a documentary style and in a pleasing
stiff upper lip understated British way. It's written by R.C. Sherriff
and based on the books "Enemy Coast Ahead" by Wing Comdr. Gibson and the
book "The Dam Busters" by the Australian writer Paul Brickhill.

On May 16, 1943, the newly formed 617 Squadron under the command
of the stoic RAF's Guy Gibson (Richard Todd) launched "Operation Chastise,"
a covert operation that attacked the three key Ruhr dams in Germany's industrial
valley under the light of a full moon by using innovative "skipping bombs"
created by eccentric aeronautical engineer Dr. Barnes Wallis (Michael Redgrave).
The loss of the dams (breaching the walls of the Mohne and Eder dams in
Germany’s Ruhr Valley that were essential to their industrial plans and
hitting but not breaching the third target, the Sorpe, which was of a different
construction) put a crimp on the enemy's ability to especially manufacture
steel, but the toll on the British side was heavy as 73 flyers of the 133
who departed from the Scampton, England airbase that eventful night never
returned. If the heavy price in human life was worth it is debatable, since
within a year of the incident the German industry was running again at
full capacity. Wallis was a dreamer who entered the war effort believing
his work would shorten the war, but felt great guilt that so many men lost
their lives in that effort.

The film does a great job detailing the intensive training the men
underwent, showing graphic accounts of their daring mission and offering
emotionally draining action shots of their bravery under fire. It also
shows the humanity of the scientist inventor and the enormous problems
of red tape Wallis had in getting the British war establishment to accept
his novel idea and the difficulties he had in creating this unique bomb
that called for special arrangements such as low-flights and only one bomb
in a plane. The use of actual footage of Wallis’s bomb tests made it all
the more interesting and its lesson on physics went over really well.

One thing that was certain was that this successful heroic mission
strengthened the country's resolve during a very dark time in its history,
and this essential war drama does a superlative job, with no unnecessary
romances tacked on like in a Hollywood film, of capturing the mood of that
period. One of the truly great war films. It very well might be the finest
flying picture ever made.

There's one thorny PC spot that you can make of it whatever you like:
Guy Gibson's devoted black Labrador dog who was beloved by the entire 617
squadron happened to be named Nigger with no malice intended, but nevertheless
is a socially unacceptable name that left some embarrassing moments for
the viewer.  

Go on a spree Your Wagon is the fish story of a gold mining village in California in the 1840s - before it became a state and before there were many 'good' women in the territory.

Main story centres around a menage a trois. Lee Marvin, his pardner Clint Eastwood, and Marvin's wife (Jean Seberg) are the trio.

Director Joshua Logan has captured best the vastness and beauty of the country; the loneliness of men in womenless societies.

What the $17 million-plus film (from the 1951 Lerner-Loewe Broadway musical) lacks in a skimpy story line it makes up in the music and expert choreography. There are no obvious 'musical numbers'. All the songs, save one or two, work neatly, quietly and well into the script. The actors used their own voices, which are pleasant enough and add to the note of authenticity.

1969: Nomination: Best Adapted Music Score

"Often provokes humor and refreshing
insights."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami ("A
Taste of Cherry"/"Through The Olive Trees"/"ABC Africa") has created a
deceptively simple experimental film, shot on digital video, that is filmed
entirely from the dashboard of a car in his further attempt to reinvent
the cinema. It uses two camera angles– one for the driver's seat, the
other for the passenger's seat. It involves ten short episodes set in the
congested and lively streets of Tehran; it takes place over several days
and features a pretty twentysomething female taxi driver (Mania Akbari),
who is divorced and remarried. She's wearing a chador (shawl) as she navigates
the busy streets. The film acts as a fly-on-the-windshield as it eavesdrops
on the driver's impromptu and sometimes tense conversations with her troubled
pre-adolescent son Amin (Amin Maher) and at least six women passengers
including her sister. It plays best as a breezy somewhat cerebral look
at contemporary Iran as seen through the woman taxi driver's eyes. It brings
about topics such as love, sex, marriage, divorce, parenthood, prostitution,
women's independence, identity, desire and religion. These topics are dished
out with a surprisingly easy banter and in a loosely woven spirit that
often provokes humor and refreshing insights. Besides giving us a reality
check over the position of women in Iranian society, it delves into Kiarostami's
usual probing questions about reality, fiction and truth.

It covers a wide gamut of emotions as the middle-class driver during
the ten short rides does the following: argue with her unhappy and obnoxious
son who resents mom's new hubby and that she asked for the divorce (In
order to get a divorce in clerically ruled Iran, mom had to testify that
her husband was a drug addict—which upsets the kid that his dad had to
be humiliated in that way by such a lie) and blocks out her responses by
covering his ears and telling mom she talks too much without saying anything,
cajoles a passenger whose boyfriend is filled with contradictions over
marrying her, matches wits with the 'God only can save us' chatter of an
elderly holy lady who goes to the mausoleum three times a day to pray for
her miserable existence to get better, questions a proud young hooker of
the night (played by an actress since the director couldn't find a real
prostitute willing to play the part) why she chose that career, does her
best to cheer up the same young woman from before who is filled with both
laughter and tears after she finally learns her boyfriend rejected her
and as a reaction has shaved her head without knowing why and in the last
ride mom takes a calmer but still demanding Amin, who is shuttled back
and forth between her house and his father's for overnight stays, to stay
with his grandma as the kid requested. Episode one (the longest) and ten
(the shortest) bring the film full circle around and give the narrative
its bookend symmetry, as it begins and ends with the relationship between
the working mother and her confused and seemingly oppressed son.

Kiarostami had originally wanted to center the narrative on a psychologist
who due to renovations to her office was forced to carry on sessions with
her patients in her car. But the idea soon proved to be unfeasible. The
taxi driver version enables him to still get across the naturalistic confessional
conversations as therapeutic but without seeming in the least bit as clinical
studies. Though all the conversations seemed banal, cumulatively they add
up to something lyrical. The only conversation that seemed out of place
was the one with the cackling prostitute, who didn't seem to have anything
to say that didn't seem labored and testy.

This minimal film is thought of by the director himself as a film
he initiated and then got out of the way, letting it go where it would.
In his mind, the film didn't have a director. But what's strange, despite
his pronouncement, the brilliant film has his fingerprints all over it.

'HIDDEN WARS OF DESERT STORM'

Documentary. Directed by Audrey Brohy and Gerard Ungerman. Narrated by John
Hurt. (Not rated. 60 minutes. At the Roxie.)

The American government tacitly encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait
in 1990, then let him stay in power after the first Persian Gulf War so the
United States could establish a long-term military presence in the region,
according to the documentary "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm," which claims U.S.
officials lied repeatedly about their intentions during the first conflict.

The issues raised may seem like old news given that U.S. troops are now in
Iraq to depose Hussein, but the pattern of alleged deception in the first
imbroglio has disturbing relevance to this new war.

Using historic footage and fresh interviews with scholars, activists, Arab
leaders and other experts (including former U.N. weapons inspector Scott
Ritter), "Hidden Wars" argues that, in 1990, the United States sought to
protect its oil interests in the Persian Gulf when it convinced the Saudi
government (based on questionable evidence) that Hussein's troops were a
threat to Mecca. This may be the documentary's most serious charge, though
other allegations are also damning. For example, "Hidden Wars" says that,
before the last war, U.S. military leaders knowingly withheld information from
U.S. troops about depleted uranium. The uranium was in U.S. munitions that
destroyed Iraqi tanks and military vehicles — vehicles that many U.S. troops
touched.

Documentarians Audrey Brohy and Gerard Ungerman devote the last part of
their film to the U.S.-backed U.N. sanctions that many Iraqis blame for
ruining their country's infrastructure and health system.

Brohy and Ungerman, who have collaborated on documentaries since 1995, went
back to Iraq before the latest war began, apparently trying to update this
film. As it is, "Hidden Wars" has enough material to mull over as the current
conflict enters a bloody new stage.
– Jonathan Curiel

'DYSFUNKTIONAL FAMILY'

Comedy concert. Starring Eddie Griffin. Directed by George Gallo. Written
by Eddie Griffin. (R. 84 minutes. At the AMC 1000, Metreon and Century Daly
City.)

.

Eddie Griffin hits the stage full tilt. He waves to the crowd, cuts the
music, and he's off. No wonder they call him "Fast Eddie."

Unfortunately, we've seen this before. The pacing, the leather suit, the
raspy speed rap. Chris Rock and others do it, and as long as Griffin sticks
with the shtick he doesn't have much to add. The only question is how long it
will be before he says, "White people do some strange (stuff), don't they?" Or
explains that he constantly says the "n-word" because he is trying to rob it
of its power. (Answer? Not long.)

Griffin says his idol is Richard Pryor. In that case, congratulations. Like
Pryor, Griffin is quick, funny and militantly profane. Pryor wouldn't bend on
his material, which cost him mainstream acceptance but made him a comedy
insider favorite. Griffin, despite the head-shaking from his mother in the
front row in the movie, apparently isn't going to give in either.

If that's true, too bad, because he's a talented guy. He doesn't have to
compromise completely, of course. Some of the raw bits in Robin Williams'
recent HBO special had parents leaping for the remote. But Williams knows how
to play to both the big crowd and the niche audience.

Griffin can do it too if he wants. The idea of this was supposed to be that
it wasn't really a concert film. The best parts of his act, and the
inspiration for the title, are his stories about growing up in Kansas City.
There is Uncle Bucky the heroin addict and Uncle Curtis, who invites the kids
over to watch porn.

The theory was to cut from the show to actual interviews with those
characters, but it never pays off. We hear that Uncle Curtis is a fascinating
guy who actually loves movies like "Lawrence of Arabia," but all we see is him
sitting in front of a porno flick saying "heh, heh, heh." He's a bit like Fat
Albert gone bad.

You are going to hear more from Griffin. He's already signed to play Sammy
Davis Jr. in a movie, and his impressions at the end of this concert only hint
at where he can go with acting. And even the straightest arrow has to admit
that some of his edgy stuff brings a smile.

"How many people have had their mom try to run them over with the car?"
Griffin asks at one point. Then he looks around in disbelief. "C'mon now, I
can't be the only one."
– C.W. Nevius

'CHAOS'

Drama. Starring Catherine Frot, Vincent Lindon and Rachida Brakni. Directed
by Coline Serreau. (Not rated. 109 minutes. In French with English subtitles.
At Bay Area theaters.)

A well-off middle-aged couple is driving down a city street when a
prostitute appears, running for her life. She begs to get into the car; the
husband flicks the automatic lock. And as the couple sit and watch, the young
woman's pimps beat her into an insensate pulp. Later, when the wife suggests
they should have done something to help the girl, the husband says, "What
girl?"

Thus begins writer Coline Serreau's "Chaos," an effective French concoction
that starts off like a thriller but keeps revealing different sides. Partly a
satire of bourgeois dislocation and partly a feminist fantasy, it's a movie
populated with various kinds of despicable and disappointing men — from
brutal pimps and criminal businessmen to a selfish son and an unloving husband.

The husband (Vincent Lindon) and wife (Catherine Frot) live lives that
require them to rush everywhere, and their busyness causes them to regard each
other's presence as a kind of impediment to their productivity. It takes an
insult from her adolescent son for the wife to see the wasteland of her
existence.

Wanting to do something of meaning, Helene finds the beaten-up prostitute,
Noemie, in a local hospital and devotes herself to nursing her through an
arduous recovery.

That's only the start of this intricately plotted and clever film, which
pits a successful professional woman and a streetwalker against the underworld
of French society.

Helene's husband and son, as well as Noemie's authoritarian father and
brothers and the pimps and crooks of the underworld, all share a common
assumption that is at the heart of their mental cruelty or outright brutality:
They believe — without a shred of hesitation — that they own the women in
their lives.

"Chaos" is a fable about women struggling to free themselves from that myth,

and even at its most obvious, it's exhilarating.

This film contains scenes of physical brutality against women.
– Mick LaSalle

'COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE'

Animated action thriller. Starring the voices of Steven Jay Blum, Daran
Norris and Wendee Lee. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. (R. 107 minutes. At
Bay Area theaters.)
.

"Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" is based on the Japanese anime TV series that has
won a loyal following in the United States. Made in Japan and dubbed into
English, the movie will be of interest to fans of the series, but it's hard to
imagine this overlong, overplotted and underdrawn animation winning many new
converts, either to the series or to anime in general.

Were it replicated, shot for shot, as a live-action film, "Cowboy Bebop"
would be just another unpleasant science-fiction thriller, with the usual mix
of salaciousness and violent death. The Magritte sky and the laser-like colors
will push this into the winning column for some, while others will be put off
by a Speed Racer-like lack of detail in the characters' faces and find the
animation novelty wearing thin after 10 minutes.

The movie takes place in 2071 on Mars. Spike (Steven Jay Blum) is on the
planet with his team of bounty hunters, in search of an intergalactic menace,
when an explosion rocks a major Martian city and people start dropping dead
from a mystery illness. Some kind of bioterrorist is at work, but what's the
nature of the terrorism? Viral? Bacteriological? Or something even more
sinister?

Though some of the film is made up of eye-catching action, all too often it
degenerates into long two-person conversations in which there's nothing to
look at but the barely moving mouth of a blank-faced cartoon. Still, there are
some clever touches that keep interest alive: In one scene, the characters go
to a drive-in theater and see a Western, and the lines and scratches let us
know that they're seeing an old print of a very old (20th century) movie.
- This film contains strong language, violence and sexual situations.
– Mick LaSalle

'WHAT A GIRL WANTS'

Teen comedy. Starring Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth. Directed by Dennie
Gordon. Written by Jenny Bicks and Elizabeth Chandler. (PG. 104 minutes. At
Bay Area theaters.)
.

In "What a Girl Wants," a dreadful teen comedy with a "Cinderella" theme,
chipmunky Amanda Bynes plays Daphne, a Manhattan teen who lives in a Chinatown
walkup with her single ex-hippie mom (Kelly Preston).

Life is good, but when Daphne discovers that her father is a wealthy
British aristocrat — Mom's been keeping it a secret — she flies to London to
meet Lord Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth), a starchy, high-profile pol who
doesn't know she exists. The British press corps is aroused, but Henry's
social-climbing fiancee (Anna Chancellor, in the wicked-stepmother role)
conspires to ruin the inconvenient Daphne.

Directed by Dennie Gordon ("The Adventures of Joe Dirt"), "What a Girl
Wants" is coy, contrived and shamelessly derivative of "The Princess Diaries."
In both cases, a teen heroine lives with her flaky artist mom, is catapulted
into wealth and privilege and ultimately triumphs through honesty, spunk and
cheekbones.

Bynes ("Big Fat Liar") has a flat, nasal voice that sounds as if she's from
anywhere but New York. Exuding bland, unrelenting perkiness, she looks
particularly bargain-basement next to her high-pedigree British co-stars.

Firth recycles his rigid upper-class routine from "Pride and Prejudice" and
"Bridget Jones's Diary." Eileen Atkins ("Gosford Park") plays Firth's wry,
truth-telling mother; Jonathan Pryce is the scheming Dashwood family retainer;
and Christina Cole is the fiancee's wicked daughter.

The script, co-written by Jenny Bicks of "Sex and the City," is stuffed
with vulgar-Yank and stuffy-Brit cliches ("No hugs, dear; we only show
affection to dogs and horses") and wants us to believe that dad and Daphne
bond over mutual loves of Coco Puffs, motorcycles and James Brown funk.

Partial relief is provided by attractive newcomer Oliver James, who plays
Ian, Daphne's mixed-race boyfriend. A rock of wisdom, Ian sees Daphne playing
aristocratic games and saves her: "Why are you trying so hard to fit in," he
asks, "when you're born to stand out?"
– Edward Guthmann