Rating: NNNNN
New releasesNew releases
final fantasy: the spirits within (2001, Columbia), dir. Hironobu Sakaguchi, Motonori Sakakibara w/ voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin. The first completely CGI animated movie is a bust. The animation is very cool, but then you look at the characters. It’s a mistake to use the voices of well-known actors for generic-looking characters whose mouths never quite wrap around the dialogue. The story about the Earth being overrun by alien phantoms and healing itself using universal energy comes from the anime tradition, and melding anime and CGI sounds like a good idea but doesn’t gel onscreen. NN
Big-screen rating: I’ll be impressed when they come up with a way to computer-generate an involving story and characters. NN (JH)
dr. dolittle 2 (2001, Fox), dir. Steve Carr w/ Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wilson. Murphy reprises his role as the veterinarian who can chat with the animals (usually about body functions). Here, he wants to mate a circus bear with a wild bear in the name of ecology. Kids get off on the wisecracking animals, but it’s a drag to see Murphy — who, let’s not forget, is talented — relegated to the role of silly straight man. NN
Big-screen rating: NN (IR)
with a friend like harry
(2000, Alliance Atlantis), dir. Dominik Moll w/ Laurent Lucas, Sergi López. This taut Hitchcockian thriller stars Lucas as Michel, once an aspiring writer, now a beleaguered husband and father. He runs into high school pal Harry (López), who will stop at nothing to help Michel return to his writing. The buildup is enticingly slow and at times very funny, with Harry glowering at anyone who questions Michel’s talent. What’s amusing is that Michel might not be so gifted after all. NNNN
Big-screen rating: NNNN (IR)
Also this weekAlso this week
Freddy Got Fingered
Replicant
Town & Country
UpcomingUpcoming
October 31
Code Unknown, Signs And Wonders, Swordfish
November 2
Shrek
November 6
Baby Boy, Legally Blonde, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Special Edition)
DVD pick of the weekDVD pick of the week
monty python and the holy grail: special edition (1975, Columbia Tri-Star), dir. Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam w/ Jones, Gilliam, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman. For anyone who knows Holy Grail by heart, this two-disc DVD is a godsend. Not only can you skip straight to the “knights who say “Ni'” scene, or “I fart in your general direction,” but the Pythons have also managed to send up the whole DVD completist mania, too. This disc includes subtitles from Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part II, “for people who don’t like the film.”
Extras: audio commentaries by Gilliam, Jones, Cleese, Idle and Palin, the screenplay, karaoke sing-alongs, How To Use Your Coconuts film, Gilliam’s original sketches and posters, a 1974 BBC-TV report from the set, trailers and the complete Knights Of The Round Table song rendered in Lego. 91 minutes. NNNN CAMERON BAILEY
