Rating: NNNNN
New releases
duets
(2000, WB), dir. Bruce Paltrow w/ Gwyneth Paltrow, Huey Lewis. Paltrow, her estranged dad (Lewis) and a cast of characters enter a big-money karaoke contest. Karaoke was passe years ago, so having it serve as the focus of this uneven comedy was the first mistake. The second was casting the bland Paltrow and cardboard-cutout Lewis as the leads and leaving supporting players like André Braugher, Paul Giamatti and Maria Bello on the sidelines. NN
Big-screen rating: Welcome to the dark underside of karaoke. NN (JH)
quills
(2000, Paramount), dir. Philip Kaufman w/ Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet. The Marquis de Sade (Rush) continues to publish his sexually explicit fiction even though he’s incarcerated in an insane asylum. This fictionalized account of de Sade’s final years points out the beauty in his honesty and the ugliness of the hypocrisy that kept him locked up, but it’s delivered in a most obvious fashion. Rush and Winslet earn their paycheques, but Michael Caine and Joaquin Phoenix strut about showing very little emotional subtlety. NN
Big-screen rating: It’s a nifty balancing act that requires a certain misrepresentation. NNNN (JH)
sunshine
(2000, Alliance Atlantis), dir. István Szabó w/ Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris. Fiennes plays the grandfather, father and son in a Jewish Hungarian family facing the 20th century’s anti-Semitic perils. It’s three hours(!) of a slightly crazed-looking Fiennes repeating the same mistakes over and over. The epic span of the story is enthralling, but Fiennes’ stiff, righteous performance is a drag. NN
Big-screen rating: The story, while fascinating, feels like the Coles Notes version of a much meatier saga. NNN (KL)
what women want
(2000, Paramount), dir. Nancy Meyers w/ Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt. When ad exec Gibson acquires the power to read women’s minds, he uses it to sabotage the career of his new boss (Hunt). This romantic comedy is really just an update of the old Rock Hudson/Doris Day 50s comedy that toyed with gender politics and the idea that women are unfathomable to simple men. The comic and sociological potential is huge, but Meyers and her cast play it safe, afraid to navigate the gaping abyss that separates today’s men and women. Gibson eats up way too much screen time mugging for the camera. More Hunt, less Gibson, please. NN
Big-screen rating: Nancy Meyers is Nora Ephron in disguise. NN (JH)
Also this week
Little Darling
A Texas Funeral
Upcoming
May 15
Anti-Trust, Best In Show, Pay It Forward, Tora! Tora! Tora !(Special Edition).
May 22
Before Night Falls, Requiem For A Dream, Shadow Of The Vampire, Vertical Limiteight men out (1988, MGM), dir. John Sayles w/ John Cusak, David Strathairn. Sayles takes the story of the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox,” who were paid off to throw the World Series, and recasts it as an epic class conflict — Shoeless Joe Jackson got that name for a reason. John Cusack is terrific here as the moral soul of the team, but Eight Men Out stands out now as the centrepiece of a corruption trilogy — including Matewan and City Of Hope — that Sayles made smack dab in the middle of the Reagan-Bush era. MGM’s DVD includes audio tracks and subtitles in French and Spanish, plus the trailer. 119 minutes. NNNN
