(Best of list was last updated on 10/31/01)

Here we are again, and once again, I have relied heavily on Dave Lichtenstein's (excellent and much appreciated) help to have enough reviews to make a newsletter! The other thing I've used to pad the newsletter is an essay on personal favorites that I've been working on for some time; as always, I hope you enjoy it...

ON SCREEN (reviews by Dave):

BELOVED: I went into this movie knowing that other reviewers have called Beloved a fair-to-poor adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. However, I had not read the book, just as I had not read The Joy Luck Club at the time that I gave that film my highest rating. I was hoping only to see a well told story.

Oprah Winfrey produced and stars in the film. She plays Sethe, a woman who describes herself as having "a tree on my back and a haint in my house". The "haint," of course, quickly manifests as Beloved (Thandie Newton); determining who, what and why she is takes up the remainder of the story.

I am tempted to compare this movie with Ghost, but in many respects the latter film took the easy way out of its story problems. Beloved, on the other hand, takes the harder road through its story, stays on that road three hours, and in the end tosses aside sentimentality for a more revealing look at human frailty and strength. Ghost is also a thoroughly American film in body and spirit. Beloved has the echo of European theater in its frames, in its direction, and in its attitude to its climax.

The director is Jonathan Demme, who has a stellar reputation. That acknowledged, he made some unusual choices with some elements of this film that do not always work. For instance, in a scene near the beginning of the film in which Danny Glover's character is being introduced, the conversation between Glover and Winfrey is shot directly into each of their faces (rather than over a shoulder, or some other third person perspective). For a few jarring seconds, Demme invites the audience to *be* these characters. This technique has been used to good effect elsewhere (in a few episodes of Quantum Leap, for one example), but I do not think that Demme had a specific reason for using it in that scene.

Another interesting element is Rachel Portman's music, which is used sparsely but to great effect. Ms. Portman has a handful of other film scores to her credit, including The Joy Luck Club, Benny & Joon, To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar, and Smoke.

Make no mistake: Beloved is a ghost story which has the power to frighten if you let it. The title character is as manipulative of her benefactors as any character from Dangerous Liaisons, and even more tactless. That said, I enjoyed my time in the world of this movie (though I wouldn't want to live there), and I could recommend it to those with the patience for a movie with a European feel. This movie takes on more complex themes in more daring ways than did the similar Ghost, so even though it is not a perfect film, I feel that it does merit a higher mark (**** 1/2 out of 5 stars).

THE SIEGE: I did not see The Last Temptation of Christ when it was in the theaters. It just didn't seem worth spending my money on at the time. I have since seen it on videotape and I can assure you that it just isn't worth all the fuss. You know: the picketing and boycotting and the allegations of gross incivility and bias on the part of the producers. It isn't worth it at all.

While The Siege has inspired similar protests, it is nevertheless is a very different type of movie. This film deals directly with issues that we should be discussing in all our civics classes. How much freedom are we willing to give up, and in exchange for how much security? Should we give up our right to bear arms? Should we restrict the travel of suspicious persons? Should we respond to violence with violence? Should we bargain with terrorists?

The problem, of course, is that the movie does not state these questions in our faces; that would be to the detriment of its story. At its base, it is not a philosophical movie, but an action thriller. Those people who go to such movies and turn off their minds could very easily be offended by the film's portrayal of Arabs and Arab-Americans. They are seeing the medium but not the message.

As an action film, The Siege is only about as good as the somewhat similar Die Hard sequels, or about *** 1/2 out of 5 stars in my reckoning. In my opinion, this story could be told so much better in novel form. I would love to read a 660-page-plus book which could delve more deeply into the issues that the film raises but never resolves. Strange to say, but perhaps this is one of those films which will actually be more worthwhile when it comes out on video. The debates it raises are worth having.

ON TAPE (reviews by me):

CHARACTER: It's Amsterdam in the 1920's, and Court Baliff Dreverhaven is perhaps the most hated man in town; he evicts the poor from their apartments with relish, tossing sick women out of their beds and braving violent mobs.  He has a tryst one night with his beautiful but stoic and unpleasant chambermaid.  The child produced by this union grows up a bright, alienated boy perpetually haunted by the specter of his father, who becomes his greatest nemesis--or is he? Mike van Diem's film plumbs emotional depths with almost unremitting intensity--Mahler-like dramatic music rages on and on, and everything the characters do, they do violently (although the film contains little actual graphic violence). There is (quite by design) hardly so much as a glimpse of a primary color in the entire film, and one gets a fantastic sense of the grit and gore of a large European city earlier in this century. Surprisingly, all this overstimulation had exactly the intended effect--I stayed intensely interested in every turn of the saga, as Dreverhaven and his bastard son fought an endless battle for control without a single physical blow. The ending is deliciously bewildering and nearly perfect, although it may induce you to head straight to the nearest Blockbuster to rent Babette's Feast. My favorite quirk: the kindest and most sympathetic character is a lawyer. (I am serious.)  RATING:  8.

THREESOME: I hate to refer to the opinions of other critics in this newsletter, but my curiosity about this, uh, movie was piqued by the fact that Leonard Maltin thought it was good, and (seemingly) everyone else thought it was awful. Now that I've seen it, I have only one thing to add: like everyone else, Leonard Maltin makes mistakes. What's it about? Two college roommates (Josh Charles and yet another Baldwin brother, Stephen) are struggling to get along (and they are, of course, a Felix and Oscar match--are there any roommate relationships in movies that aren't?) They've just about got it when, in a sequence of events about as plausible as an Alan Keyes presidency, a pretentious young woman (Lara Flynn Boyle from Twin Peaks) moves into their suite. If you can't deduce what happens after that from that synopsis and the title, shame on you; if you can, you are perfectly excused for fast-forwarding in search of the titillating scenes, since they are the predictable reasons-for-being of the whole damn enterprise. Baldwin's acting proves conclusively that acting talent is a result of nurture and not nature; with each unbearable scene, my desire to reach into the screen and strangle him got stronger and stronger. Boyle is only marginally better, pouting and crying insufferably instead of acting. That leaves Charles, whose descent is perhaps the most tragic of all (the tragic flaw in this case: an inability to pick roles carefully!), since he was so wonderful as the young-man-in-love in Dead Poets' Society. He's not terrible, but he (and the occasional clever scene that deserves to be in a better movie) aren't anywhere near enough to salvage this mess. Neither is the humor, which consists mostly of things that writer/director Andrew Fleming thinks are funny that really aren't (he seems to be utterly fascinated with toilets to the point that it is apparently some kind of fetish). Ugh!  RATING:  2.

SOME PERSONAL FAVORITES

One of the interesting phenomena I've noticed in my moviewatching is a tendency to have favorite scenes at least as readily as I have favorite movies. In a way, this is not what one would expect, since people are more likely to ask you what your favorite movies are than they are to ask you anything about scenes. Nevertheless, there do seem to be some sequences that have acquired an exceptional reputation over the years, and others for which I myself have developed affection. One that falls into both categories is that unforgettable back-of-the-taxi talk between Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger in the classic On the Waterfront. This got me thinking about other ones I love, and I quickly noticed what many of them have in common--critical communication, or an attempt at communication, between interesting and well-honed characters. (I left out other great scenes, like the Odessa Steps from Battleship Potemkin and the ending of The Four Hundred Blows, because they did not quite fit this criterion.) As with the reviews, I hope that this list (which is in no particular order) will inspire you to head out to your local video store or library and take a second look, or perhaps even a first one. I will add that this list is by no means exhaustive (although the honorable mentions below might seem that way), and I would be very interested in hearing about some of the readers' preferences in the scene department, perhaps for inclusion in future newsletters...

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. Near the end, there is an incredibly powerful moment between Rod Steiger (interesting non-coincidence, huh?) and Sidney Poitier as both men struggle to figure out how much the other is a member of some other race, and how much he is merely a human being. The acting is subtle and absolutely extraordinary.

METROPOLITAN. The end-of-the-party colloquy between the debutante group's young outsider (played by Edward Clements) and its witty and arrogant leader (Chris Eigeman) has an irresistibly witty charm that permeates it; my Mom cracked up when she heard the last line.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Like In the Heat of the Night, this is a movie with many, many great scenes; the one in which Anthony Quinn interrogates fellow Arab leader Omar Sharif about his friendship with the depressed and bitter Lawrence is my choice for the best.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID: There is a great scene right at the beginning in which Butch and Sundance use their notoriety to con a cynical old gambler (played quite well by Sam Elliott). One of the many reasons to love it: this one segment was filmed not in color or in black-and-white, but in a sepia tone that suggests a nineteenth-century photograph. I have almost as much affection for the movie's most famous scene (the quite literal cliffhanger), but in my opinion this one wins out because of its great subtlety.

8 1/2. Wow! What an ending!

JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG. I can't say much about it without giving away the plot, but the great climax--involving, among others, Spencer Tracy, Bert Lancaster, and Maximillian Schell--has to be seen to be believed.

INTERIORS. One of Woody Allen's great triumphs, this movie's conclusion (with Geraldine Page, Mary Beth Hurt, Jean Stapleton, and Sam Waterston) is almost as good as that of Judgement at Nuremberg.

CHASING AMY. The movie itself, while good, isn't one of my all-time favorites, but the moment in which Ben Affleck finally declares his affection for his lesbian friend Joey Lauren Adams cuts like a laser through jaded layers of slacker detachment and hits real feeling without being sappy. In other words, it's damn good.

THE GREAT ESCAPE. I almost cry every time I see that amazing scene with David Attenborough, James Garner, and Donald Pleasance.

GHANDI. Speaking of David Attenborough, I can't say enough good things about the scene between a starving, almost-dead Ghandi (Ben Kingsley, of course) and the man who comes to him with a confession at the height of the Hindu/Muslim violence. This is a conversation with a redemptive power almost comparable to that of the Rembrandt painting Return of the Prodigal Son (and perhaps even that of the Biblical story itself); to be moved by it is to be human.

ANNIE HALL: Since I feel like ending this on a funny note, I will lastly cite the line-at-the-movie-theatre debate early in this film between Woody (who pretty much plays Woody, as he does in most of his movies) and a pretentious professor of media (Russell Horton, who, by the way, is perfectly cast). I wish life were like that too!

HONORABLE MENTIONS (not in any order): The very end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off; the fight scene near the end of Broadcast News; Karl Malden's monologue in On the Waterfront; the weepy scene in When Harry Met Sally (which I like better than the overrated I'll-have-what-she's-having scene); the "nothing is written" sequence in Lawrence of Arabia; the Deep Throat meetings in All the President's Men; Humphrey Bogart's testimony in The Caine Mutiny; the opera sequence in The Shawshank Redemption; the flower sequence in Harold and Maude; the endings of Metropolitan, Manhattan, Rocky, Cry the Beloved Country, Girl Interrupted, Benny and Joon, Ordinary People, The Breakfast Club, Return of the Jedi, Midnight Cowboy, Broadcast News, and The World of Apu; the beginnings of Trainspotting and Mean Streets; the arguments between R2D2 and C3PO and Luke's meeting of Obi-Wan in Star Wars; the first meeting of Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger in Shadowlands; most of Smoke, The Graduate, Children of a Lesser God, and Much Ado About Nothing; the subway scene in The Warriors; the "Daisy sequence" in 2001:  A Space Odyssey (much of the movie consists of great scenes, but this is one of the few where there is communication); the bathroom scene in Duel; the book scene in Remains of the Day; the construction site dialogue between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting; and the interviews between the band and Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz.

Everyone have a great and safe holiday, and let me know if you rent any good movies!

Tony %)