ON SCREEN:

AMISTAD: Few people who aren't historians know the story of the Amistad insurrection of 1839; for those who fall into that category, here is a brief synopsis. The Amistad was a Spanish slave ship headed for Cuba; just before it arrived there, the slaves rebelled and overthrew their captors. The rebels kept two of them alive and ordered them to steer back to Africa. Instead of doing that, the Spaniards deliberately sailed North, eventually landing on Long Island, where the "contraband" were seized by the US Navy and taken to New Haven for trial as pirates. Abolitionists hoped to make them into a cause celebre, and the Spanish government of Queen Isabella II hoped to get them back, which soon involved President Van Buren, in the midst of a heated re-election campaign. As with other broad-shouldered, idealistic epics of recent vintage--I am thinking of The Killing Fields and of anything directed by Richard Attenborough--Stephen Spielberg's triumph is grand in its scope without ever being impersonal. Is there anyone young and wanting to do good by the world who could not relate to Mr. Baldwin (Matthew McConoughey), the (at first) cynical property lawyer who defends the rebels? The same could be said for Djimon Honsou, who plays Cinque, the rebel leader, with enough personal magnetism for five films. Morgan Freeman, playing a composite black abolitionist who enlists Baldwin, has his usual earnest dignity, well suited for this role. And as for Anthony Hopkins, playing that old codger, ex-President John Quincy Adams--well, let's just say he is Anthony Hopkins. Helped by all this extraordinary acting, Spielberg keeps things both moving and entertaining, only rarely getting stagey. (The film's most significant drawback, John Williams' overbearing music score, seems designed to make up for this with its self-consciousness.) His portrayal of the slave trade is like nothing else so much as a glimpse into Hell. Oh, and I looked hard for historical inaccuracies, and while they are there (as with any film dealing with history) Spielberg's crew generally seem to have done their homework. (The one that I found was John Quincy Adams' portrayal as a reluctant abolitionist, whom Freeman and his fellows have to coax out of a retirement-like state like an old slugger in some sports movie. This was not quite the case; Adams, who argued the case before the Supreme Court, was a die-hard abolitionist at least from the time of his election to the House of Representatives a year after losing re-election to the White House). . I don't usually like to talk about endings, but Adams' speeches near the end present us with an interesting antithesis. He, a man of wisdom and valor, had lost a Presidential election, yet was far more suited to lead a country than the slaves' ultimate enemy, the eleven-year-old Queen of Spain (Anna Paquin from The Piano). On a lighter note, watch carefully for a surprise in the court scene.

WASHINGTON SQUARE: Anyone who is convinced that American families never had any trouble until the counterculture in the 1960's--and yes, such people do exist--should be forced to watch this adaptation of Henry James' novel. The plot revolves around Albert Finney, playing a prominent doctor and man of science in mid-Nineteenth-Century New York society. When all the knowledge in the world fails to save his wife's life in childbirth, the suppressed emotional part of him takes it out on the child (played as an adult by Jennifer Jason Leigh). She grows up determined to please him, at least until a fumbling but charming young suitor (Ben Chaplin, the male romantic lead from The Truth About Cats and Dogs) comes into the picture. The story is rich and engrossing, if rather melodramatic, and the period detail looked nearly perfect to me (and I tried hard to find things to nitpick, too). What stuck with me more than these aspects, however, was the way Finney becomes so immersed in his role, quickly making us forget he's any kind of actor. Leigh and Chaplin--who can both be rather flat, as I have complained in the past--have both improved significantly since the last time I saw them, but they can't quite compete with Finney; he would make the film worth watching even if he was the only good thing about it, which he isn't.

BOOGIE NIGHTS: is being sold as a late-70's retro movie, but actually it focuses on a very specific piece of that time period: the bejeweled and seedy porn industry, suffused with high artistic pretensions but doomed by the impending arrival of videotape. Lured by disco glamour, lust for fame, and above all a longing for something resembling actual human connections, the aspiring porn gods and goddesses in the retinue of director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) sink ever deeper into easy gratification; soon after comes the degradation that (I am convinced) must come with their chosen profession. Mark Wahlberg (the rapper Marky Mark) is the principal male star and designated innocent in this surreal vortex, but he is ultimately outshined by his female, uh, co-performers, Julianne Moore and Heather Graham (an engaging young actress whom we first met as one of the leads in Swingers). Their talents notwithstanding, the film really belongs to Reynolds, the father in the bizarre family that emerges; he is an arsenal of smoldering stares and portentous laughter, alternately repulsive, passionate, and enigmatic. (Also, his very presence in the movie is something of a pop-culture joke, since he was one of the 70's biggest stars.) There are so many things to like about this movie--near-perfect period detail, a perverse sense of humor (maybe even a humorous sense of the perverse!), unerringly frightening editing and montages--that I want to affix the word "great" to it. The reason I cannot is because I empathize with the characters, but never really sympathize with them; I recognize familiar aspects of life in the film, but I know all too well why their lives are the way they are. Consequently, the film seems to lack a soul. (The other main drawback of the film--some unnecessary violence--cannot go without mention.) One taut scene in the second half says it all: Moore and Graham, having assumed a mother/daughter-like relationship, mouth endless plaititudes like "You can be anything you want to be" to each other while snorting endless amounts of cocaine. I laughed perversely at how hollow that feel-good slogan was in that context, but felt uncomfortable at the same time. If I had felt sympathy, then I would be calling this a great triumph of a movie, not just a well-made one.

ON TAPE:

LISTEN UP: THE LIVES OF QUINCY JONES: Quincy Jones, as many of you probably know, has contributed more behind-the-scenes work than practically anyone else to the popular music world of the last half century. Appropriately, the story of his life is told as though it were a swinging and highly improvised piece of jazz or funk, with chord and mood changes and, if you get hooked, an incredible feeling of exhilaration. The theme that gradually emerges from all the riffing and blowing is that Jones is not an outstanding genius on any one instrument; instead, he is a virtuoso at the arts of organizing and collaboration--producing, arranging, scoring, composing, and exhorting a performer into doing his or her best work. As enjoyable as all this is, it inevitably leaves out intriguing details, and these omissions weaken the film considerably. It is mentioned that Jones studied music theory with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1950's, but there is not one word about how this influenced or changed him. Furthermore, we see lots of footage from what was arguably Jones' finest hour--the "We are the World" sessions in 1985-- but we aren't told anything about the story, or how Jones achieved what he achieved. On a less serious note, it is entertaining just to sit and be amazed at the staggering quantity (and quality) of important people interviewed for this film. Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Jesse Jackson, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Ahmet Ertegun, Sidney Lumet, James Ingram, Michael Jackson (who bizarrely refuses to appear on camera), Ice-T, Steven Spielberg, Herbie Hancock, and a barely audible Miles Davis are only a few of those who appear, all dressed in black, to testify on Jones' behalf. One interesting touch: no talking head is ever identified by a caption until the end. Instead, everyone introduces himself or herself, and at least one celebrity (Ray Charles) expresses playful indignance at the idea that anyone would not know who he is. Perfect moments like that one are the reason I love to watch documentaries.

GO FISH: Max and Ely are two very different people: Max is brash, down-to-earth, and a bit of a punk; Ely is shy, dreamy, and a bit of a hippie. Do they get together? What do you think? What's different about this you-say-tomato-I-say-tomahto romantic comedy is that they are both women, and the filmmakers (Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner) want you to know how very proud of that they are. Unlike in the superficially similar The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, the characters are old enough to be worldly-wise and cautious. Also, Go Fish was made on the fly in grainy black-and-white; Guin Turner, who plays Max, also wrote the script and even did the animation for the end credits! While more inventive and original than The Incredible..., this film is also less enjoyable, for several unfortunate reasons. For one thing, Max and Ely's friends are a Greek chorus-like bunch who prattle on and on about their relationships and lesbian life in general. Like any group of people who talk about one or two things to the exclusion of all else, they're tiresome. Furthermore, the action is frequently interrupted by abstract, imagistic interludes resembling something from an old surrealist movie. These diversions are interesting until you realize that they were put in the script mainly to make it long enough for a feature film. (To make matters worse, the symbolism is too unsubtle too often; in one scene Ely's roommate jumps into bed with her latest date just after we see a closeup of two hands opening a piece of bread. Ugh!) Overall, this is worth renting, but I would have been really disappointed if I had seen it in a theatre.

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY: The 1995 film version of Alan Paton's novel lacks the great sweep and harrowing poetry of its source; nevertheless, it is profoundly moving. James Earl Jones plays Stephen Kumalo, a simple country priest from the veld of South Africa who sets out on a journey to Johannesburg to find his sister, brother, and son, who moved there for work years ago and have seemingly disappeared. The tale is a harsh condemnation of apartheid's dehumanization of all those--black and white--who lived under it, but one of the reasons it is so powerful is that it is transcends its specific situation and becomes timeless. Ultimately, anything that dehumanizes us and forces us to abandon human understanding and compassion is an evil; to Paton, that means the apartheid-spawned economic situation that forced Kumalo's relatives to go to the city as much as it means anything political. Conversely, the story is hopeful, and more than a mere tragedy, because it offers us that understanding and compassion, if we have enough courage to embrace them, as a way out. Of course, none of this would be possible without solid and subtle acting; fortunately, Jones and Richard Harris (playing a rich white landowner who crosses paths with Kumalo) more than provide it. The supporting cast is also excellent, including Charles Dutton as a leader in an ANC-like group, providing a secular contrast to Kumalo's deep faith. Not to be forgotten, the cinematography captures both the grandeur of the veld landscape--a metaphor for that faith--and the desperation of the poor of Johannesburg. Please see this movie.

In closing, yet another strong recommendation: Not too long ago, I went to a showing of works by the American Surrealist filmmaker Maya Deren at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. If you ever get a chance to see anything by her (especially Meshes of the Afternoon, a frightening feminist fable from the 1940's), I strongly recommend it. At the suggestion of many people, I finally got around to watching the perverted Comedy Central cartoon South Park, featuring the off-color adventures of four eight-year-olds in a strange little town in what seems like Minnesota. If you haven't seen it yet, I predict that you will either love it or hate it, depending on how well you can take offense--I fit into the first category myself. I hope that 1998 proves to be a year of great moviegoing for all of us....

Until then,