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Affliction; Hilary and Jackie; Rushmore; My Favorite
Martian; Message in a Bottle; Payback; Varsity Blues; Shakespeare in Love
-- and much more!
Up for Oscars
With Sunday, March 21, comes Oscar night. You have one last weekend to see the nominees. Here’s what New Bay Times reviewers thought of the five nominees for Best Picture. Life is Beautiful -- which you’ll have to see in Baltimore or Washington -- is also a contender for Best Foreign Picture.
Life is Beautiful Jonathan Parker
It will make you laugh; it will make you cry. This is a cliché, but few movies live up to it better than this magnificent comedy. Directed, co-written by and starring Italy’s rubber-faced clown prince Roberto Benigni, this Italian film won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival last spring and was nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture. It is a must-see.
Guido (Benigni) is a fun-loving waiter who falls for a beautiful school teacher (Benigni’s real life wife Nicoletta Braschi) in 1930s’ Italy. Their funny and touching courtship occurs amidst a Fascist-turning society that seems irrelevant to their daily lives. But Guido is Jewish.
Always making the best of the situation, Guido refuses to feel threatened until he, his wife and his young son (Giorgio Cantarini) are sent to a German concentration camp. Even then, Guido uses his humor and resourcefulness to keep hope and sanity alive .
Pulling off a comedy set amidst the Holocaust is obviously a tricky task. But director Benigni is amazingly deft at conjuring up smiles and laughs without a hint of offensiveness. Indeed, we sympathize with our very likable hero, and we understand that his sometimes irrational actions are indeed rational for him in such irrational times. In order to protect his son, Guido turns life into a game. A game of survival. A winning game.
Rated PG-13 A
When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, England was on shaky ground, beset by foreign threats and torn by internal squabbles about religion and the rights of succession. It didn’t help that Elizabeth was a lusty young temptress. Surrounded by hostile forces, the young Elizabeth (Kate Blanchett) gets guidance and help -- not all of it well-intentioned -- from a variety of advisors.
Director Shekhar Kapur drapes the whole thing in gauzy lighting to enhance the sneaky shenanigans and takes us on a lavish visual ride through some grand settings and gorgeous interiors. But Kapur’s visual tricks don’t make up for a murky plot and confusing sequences.
2:04 R C
Saving Private Ryan Jeff Ignatius
The first 20 minutes is director Steven Spielberg’s dramatization of the Allied invasion of the killing beaches of Normandy, one of the great turning points of World War II. The story then changes focus, from broad to narrow, as a handful of the survivors are ordered to find one Private James Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in action.
Tom Hanks plays Capt. Miller, leading the mission and this amazingly skilled cast, among them the fearless, grizzled combat veteran Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore) and the gun-shy novice Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davies).
The audience emerges from Saving Private Ryan bloodied, bruised and shaken, because at its best the movie put us in the virtual middle of war. You will be haunted for weeks by the aural and visual prowess of the epic opening.
2:45 R B+
Shakespeare in Love Bill & Joan Coleman
Shakespeare in Love is the kind of movie that Will Shakespeare deserves: teeming with real life -- with sight gags, wordplay, bawdiness, sex, love, conflict and loss -- going by so thick and fast that you can’t catch it all at once.
Joseph Fiennes is Shakespeare. Gwyneth Paltrow plays his love Viola and, in a twist, the most moving Romeo we have ever heard. Geoffrey Rush is yet again astonishing as the put-upon owner of the Rose theater. Dame Judi Dench is commanding as Queen Elizabeth.
Director John Madden’s virtuoso technique brings us Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard’s script in full variety and richness. Don’t miss it.
2:02 R A-
The Thin Red Line Bill & Joan Coleman
The Thin Red Line -- an adaptation of a novel by James Jones, who also wrote From Here to Eternity -- is a fictional account of the operations of an infantry company on Guadalcanal Island in the Pacific during World War II.
Like many war movies with large casts of famous actors, The Thin Red Line never focuses. Characters are underdeveloped, plot confused, and the big names are on screen only briefly.
Several actors -- including Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Ben Chaplin and John Cusack -- excel. Nick Nolte is energetic as Col. Tall. Elias Koteas is moving as Capt. Staros.
With stunningly beautiful photography, it tries very hard to make a major statement about the meaning of war -- but doesn’t succeed.
2:50 R C-
for Top Acting …
Nick Nolte plays a small town, middle-aged malcontent, wrestling with his hereditary demons in the slow but intriguing drama, Affliction. Writer/director Paul Schrader (writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull) spins a quiet yarn that is as harsh and cold as the New England winter setting of Russell Banks’ novel.
Troubles are many for Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte), who is a part-time policeman, part-time snowplow operator. Paramount are his troubled upbringing at the hands of a violently alcoholic father, played by James Coburn.
Nolte and Coburn earned surprise Oscar nominations for best actor and best supporting actor. Some said Nolte was up not for his performance here but to reward his sum total of strong performances, including in best-picture nominee The Thin Red Line. Some claimed Coburn was up solely because he has before been nominated.
In spite of this Oscar-conspiracy theorizing, Nolte and Coburn’s nominations are well deserved. Nolte gives a very complex and engaging performance as troubled soul Wade. Coburn is appropriately nasty and frightening as the alcoholic father now withered with age.
1:54 R B-
Hilary and Jackie Jonathan Parker
This excellent English import tells the tragic and true story of brilliant young cellist Jacqueline du Pre and her flautist sister Hilary. First-time feature director Anand Tucker focuses on both sisters and the bond that connects them through family, fame and, ultimately, fatal illness.
The sisters compete for the affection of parents, teachers, lovers and a listening public. But the film avoids clichés, rejoicing in their bond instead of taking sides.
The film’s narrative style is just as refreshing, showing the story first through the eyes of both sisters, then, as they split up, from first Hilary’s and then Jackie’s side.
Emily Watson, nominated last year for Breaking the Waves, fully deserves, an Oscar for her sassy yet melancholy performance as the genius cellist Jackie. Rachel Griffiths does as well as sister Hilary.
2:01 R A-