Rating: NNNNN
New releases
enemy at the gates (2001, Paramount), dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud w/ Jude Law, Ed Harris. Law plays celebrated Russian sniper Vassili Zaitsev, who’s hunted by German sniper Major Konig (Harris) during the battle of Stalingrad. Annaud isn’t much of a writer, but he knows how to frame stunning pictures, and this is the best direction of rubble and crumbling concrete you’ll ever see. Law and Harris’s mini-confrontations are filmed with a bland efficiency that underwhelms, but the staging of the devastating battle makes the movie worth renting. NNN
Big-screen rating: NNN (IR)
15 minutes (2001, Alliance Atlantis), dir. John Herzfeld w/ Robert De Niro, Ed Burns. New York fire inspector Burns and hotshot cop De Niro hunt recently arrived Russian immigrants who film their killing spree. Herzfeld doesn’t quite pull off his condemnation of American celebrity-loving culture he loses control of the story near the end, when the wild tabloid TV subplot takes over. De Niro gives a solid performance — thank goodness he’s reined in the overacting — but Burns’s appeal is a mystery. His smug onscreen attitude and laid-back approach to acting make him one of the blandest performers around. NN
Big-screen rating: Herzfeld overloads the last 10 minutes of the film with climaxes good performances. NNN (JH)
get over it (2001, Alliance Atlantis), dir. Tommy O’Haver w/ Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster. When Berke’s (Foster) girlfriend breaks up with him, he lands a part in the school’s musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to win her back. There are crappy teen comedies out there, but this isn’t one of them. O’Haver (Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss) has a great touch, melding kitsch and ironic humour, and the final musical sequence is straight out of Waiting For Guffman. Martin Short gives a laugh-out-loud turn as a nasty drama teacher with a taste for boy band culture. NNN
Big-screen rating: NNN (IR)
josie and the pussycats (2001, Columbia TriStar), dir. Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont. This overlooked teen grrrl flick cleverly sends up the marketing of teen culture while peddling a manufactured rock band right back at us. It’s as if Wayne’s World were mated with Charlie’s Angels. Filmmakers Kaplan and Elfont let the audience in on the joke without alienating the young women it’s meant to attract. NNN
Big-screen rating: NNN (IR)
Also this week
Blow Dry
Extreme Limits
Tomcats
Upcoming
August 21
Hannibal, Say It Isn’t So, Water Drops On Burning Rocks
August 28
Company Men, The Dish, Exit Wounds, Joe Dirt
DVD pick of the week
ordinary people (1980, Paramount), dir. Robert Redford w/ Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore. Redford’s directing debut beat out Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull for 1981’s best-picture and director Oscars. For that reason alone, many cinephiles hate Ordinary People. But Redford didn’t simply drench this story of an imploding WASP family in big, Oscar-bait emotion. He followed a complex, emotionally accurate path. Much harder to do. And worthy of the Oscar. In any other year.
extras: A bare-bones disc, with only French audio and the trailer. 124 minutes. NNNN
CAMERON BAILEY
