Love impurity? So did the Marquis De Sade. He loved it so much that later in life, he would spread it (via the written word) using any means necessary :
verbally, written in blood on his clothing, etched in wine on his linens or smeared on prison walls using only his own excrement. Sounds exciting? It's absolutely
riveting - to a point. The problem with Quills, an exceedingly eloquent and wonderfully polished character study (or assassination?), isn't the performances - which, save the dull,out-of-place Caine, are uncommonly strong - but the execution of the damn movie as a whole. The very idea that a movie about the Marquis De Sade, the infamous well-spoken purveyor of literary eroticism, could exist today as an pagemarking plea for free speech as powerful if not more than The People Vs. Larry Flynt and contain such a minute and closeted scope, is preposterous. Everything about the movie is ravishing from the sets to the script  to the way it plots its points as contemporary in this eighteenth century parallel universe as if the Marquis could be some high school teenager, rich in libido and still burning with the passion of youth (Note : Quills is filmed theater, but that aspect of it is clever enough to transcend itself all the way up until its ironic ending, which is mostly the fault of  casting agents who put Michael Caine in charge of affecting intensity in the face of an obviously need for subtlety). Rush is the ideal choice to play the Marquis, as he can take over-the-top hamming and channel it into a wonderful concentration of his combined energies, make it spell out one thing (above all, this is an accomplished writer who loves to write) and retreat into an emotional cavern so dark, we the audience almost pity this creature as we watch his horrid influence wreak havoc on those fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to cross his path. Perhaps beyond the predictable tour-de-force Rush performance, it is the younger thespians (Phoenix and Winslet) who steal the movie, playing a priest and a chambermaid who have a kind of 'Remains of the Day' brand of suppressed love for each other. Phoenix, whom I'm convinced is an actor whose range matches that of most top actors working today (picture these vast chasms of dimension : vampish teen in To Die For, scapegoat extraordinarre in Return to Paradise and the seething, sadistic, incestual emperor in Gladiator), is wonderful as a man of God content to see the Marquis purge his soul of filth by writing, while defending his position as an authority figure against Caine on one hand and pledging his love to Winslet in that Jane Austen ultra interior kind of way on the other. His complexities are matched by Winslet as a chambermaid smitten with the Marquis' art (and to a degree, the man himself) as fervently as she is curiously pursuing Phoenix - while all the while harboring a deep sexuality she can't express in an appropriate manner among any of the small dangers lurking in these characters' place of business (which, by the way, is a mental institution). If at all I seemed skeptical about this pleasantly theater-like if under utilized breadth Quills possesses, it melts away as you watch what is as engrossing a colonial era film as any handed to us in recent years on Oscar platters (namely, Shakespeare in Love and Restoration, movies that could easily get off at the same mirth-soaked financial extremity of a train station where all the inhabitants divert themselves with obsessions we love to think could go gleefully hand in bloody hand with this brand of period interpretation). As with any of Shakespeare's plays, the most fun Quills has to offer is the way its dialogue is so perfect, so devoid of ambiguity and so unbelievably....bawdy - we relish every last word (and we thannk God actors exist who can wrap their tongues around the Marquis's words as well as Branagh or Olivier could the Bard's).
The Marquis De Sade was in love with his prose. But most of all, he was in love with himself, and with the lust he surrounded his aura with and built his reputation upon. This man was the groundbreaking shock journalist of his time and Phillip Kaufman's film, though limited in resources and ambition, is as potent as the Marquis' language. Quills is a Penthouse letter in three acts, forged with a feather pen and written in the very lifeblood of subversion.

As usual, I don’t know why I do this to myself. Obviously, I knew going into Reindeer Games that I hate Ben Affleck. He’s a self-obsessed, single performance actor. Obviously, I was skeptical - who wouldn’t be. But there’s a tendency to review our reason for seeing a film as we’re witnessing our own mistakes, like watching a plane crash from the inside - as the film is going down, so to speakk. What with the constant yammering of pointless and dry dialogue exuded onscreen, I had plenty of time to consider how I got to the point where I was ready to give up one-hundred five minutes of my time to see what could possibly happen when Frankenheimer paired with Affleck, Sinise and Theron. And I came to the conclusion that Frankenheimer has a long name and I like to say it. And ending up in that theater because his last movie (the stylishly Euro-centric ‘Ronin’) had some promising car chases is as ludicrous as deciding to see a film because the director has a playfully long and textured last name that resembles a movie monster dragged through the German dictionary. Reindeer Games is simple. It concerns a guy who’s cellmate (Frain) is murdered on one of his last days in prison. This guy, played by almighty Affleck, decides to pretend to be him in order to gain access to his cellmate’s pen pal - a pre-packaged girlfriend (Theron), ass it were. Of course, then he runs into the inevitable problems you face when pretending to be someone else - the girl who is the positive end of yoour pretense has a brother (Sinise) who thinks you’re the cellmate and violently demands help on the robbery of a former casino you - or, more accurately - the cellmate was employed within. Then, of course, there’s the sorting out period, where you decide what you’re going to do about it, if anything - which in this film consists more of large, muscular guys that say really dim things and beat up on Affleck. This sort of interested me, only I wished I was administering the beatings and that the writer could join Affleck on the receiving end as well. Either way - it takes forty-five minutes for a short-lived chase scene to emerge. Then it takes ninety minutes for the heist to hit the screen - and when it does, it’s so unimaginative, you’d swear Frankenheimer had someone else direct Ronin - or this. Then there’s the explosions you saw in the preview. Let’s just be frank and say they deal with the ending and work so well as a metaphor for this film - I could almost feel their heat in my personal reflection of how relieved I was that this monstrosity was ending. It’s dubbed in it’s acting - the characters seem to be on a different plane than the story, especially when speaking (if you can imagine how annoying that was). Theron’s raw sexuality and little girl lost charms (not to mention the person underneath the mask) are all well and good - in another movie. In Reindeer Games, her character called for someone a little less beautiful, a little less perfect and a little less made-up. Sinise seems more like an pissy high school jock when he rants (for what seems like an eternity) about his crappy life as a trucker. And finally, turning back to our golden boy - Mr. Ben Affleck - he constantly feels the need to shift gears between being the sympathetic everyman who just wants to do good and the resourceful ex-con who can use his evil powers for good - but only as they serve the plot. And I can’t stand his flat and arrogant delivery anyway. The film is constantly overstating. I can’t stress that enough. The story is simple - and we get it - but our hapless writer is more intrigued by bashing points of the plot into our cerebrum with a ballpeen hammer, until we’re trying to figure out another, more interesting way to interpret them (to no avail). And for an action vehicle - the editing is bland at best. And thatt ring-a-ding ending - if implausible was a physical action, I’d have done it all over the floor.
Finally, I ask myself the sane question - should I waste time analyzing a film where I’m meant to “leave my brain at the door” and “have some fun”. It wouldn’t have been necessary had I been able to do either of those things. But, as it were - Reindeer Games would have made a sensational idea for a pulp novel - one that could have easily been conceived by Affleck, no doubt, in prison, while doing time for either Forces of Nature, Dogma or 200 Cigarettes.  And so my analysis can rest on the simple statement that as either a twisty noir thriller or an action extravaganza, Reindeer Games doesn’t deserve the vanity or excuse of self-mockery (as has been suggested by some of my fellow critics), it simply needs to be decried and avoided - and mocked outright.

[Classical Temple "call-attention-to-yourself" Column piece; Also, you'll notice I fully sacrificed objectivity in any form.]

"History is written by the winners", reads the bold stamp of a tag line for Remember the Titans, the latest Bruckheimer audience pleaser that has, exceeding my expectations, taken quite well to being transposed into a tame PG-rated, Disney tagged kids movie of sorts. I think it's that catch phrase, which echoes the old saying about schoolbooks containing embellished material due to their writers being the winners of war, that spells out the kind of ridged sentiment that is emptied into this football movie, soaking up most of its vitality and leaving diluted social commentary in almost every pocket of the story. First time writer Gregory Allen Howard likens the game of football to race relations nearly every chance he gets, stratagem constantly preparing - often at the expense of momentum - for a provocative payoff where the white folks go from ignorant to enlightened in four quarters and a touchdown. Often a thin, manipulative take on the initial unrest that ensues in the 1970's when a Virginia high school is integrated, Howard's script is full of the kind of scenes you'd expect to see in an inspirational sports cinema hymn. Luckily, director Yakin is able to salvage most of the joy of sports, resolution and epiphany, often fusing the film's James Horner-ish string music, it's period
soundtrack and the inspirational singing of the characters into something fired-up and sometimes passionate. Yakin tries his damnedest to keep the characters
bobbing up for air and strengthening a dangerously cut-and-dried  piece of fact based folklore. Denzel Washington and Will Patton play black and white coaches
forced to share the burden of sustaining a winning team. Washington gives one of his predictably commanding, stubborn, forceful performances, easily carrying the
film (for once, I'd like to see him play a quiet role or, perhaps one that's less motivated by outright injustice). Patton is interesting - usually in the background as a
character actor (Armageddon, Jesus' Son), he excels at being piggish, but tender. Yakin makes the coaches the real focal point that the film can grasp onto -
militaristic machines hell-bent on victory at any cost. The players themselves are good - if trite and molded. The team captains of the Titans are white and black - first hateful of each other, later lifelong friends (are you seeing already how faded the plausibility becomes with such rigorous sculpting?) I feel like my strings are being tugged, but Yakin still manages to make it glorious to watch the friendship of Gerry (Hurst) and Julius (Harris) bloom and operate. Sure, it leads the film countless places that it should be doing its best to shy away from - but it is engaging. There seemed to be very little football in Remember the Titans. Oftentimes, the game scenes (purposefully staged like battles) had such a forced method to their madness, their conclusions weren't even the least bit interesting. The big coaches' pep talk on the sidelines, amped up sound effects of bodies crashing into one another and definite, pulsing rhythm are constant and recycled cues that the Titans were going to emerge on top - or at least hurt somebody. And when, finally, near the close of the film, race and football become physically mixed (as the referees are paid off to fix "the big game"), the movie has been so front loaded with preconceived movie quips about prejudice - its a cynch where the whole thing will end up. As much as I disliked elements of the film, there is one scene that underscores where I think Howard was really aiming in this piece. At a football camp in Gettysburg, Washington awakens his players for a little 3 a.m. run that leads them into the dawn, descending upon a Civil War graveyard, where Washington gives a thankfully low-key summation on the whole race issue - the integration side of it - and its rroots. Its the kind of genuine, near moving sequence that a film like this sorely needs to expand on and flood itself with. Herein exists a movie that doesn't really tackle a single one of its issues with any kind of honest-to-goodness vigor or comprehension, but it manages to pull of that "sports movie spirit" in its strong characters and apt direction. I remembered the genius Yakin inspired in Fresh, his first film that drew a seamless parallel between the inner city and chess. If you must see a rousing, metaphor driven film that's intelligent and provocative, I beg you, rent that one. Remember the Titans is solid entertainment but dim brain food.

An alternately reverent and unsettling modern masterpiece, Requiem For a Dream may be the most physically and emotionally demanding film to be released
in theaters since Saving Private Ryan. Its rare, as a filmgoer and sometimes critic, that I'll actually begin tumbling around in my own brain due to the imagery
onscreen. I almost wanted the images in Requiem For a Dream to stop until I realized, after the film had ended, just how intoxicating they were. A numbing
sensation not unlike that felt at the close of The Sweet Hereafter, I almost felt like a junkie. This is a strong message and I suppose, to articulate, I felt like a junkie
who had seen the light. Aronofsky makes a wonderfully artistic case against drugs, while slamming his audience with a dark and dismal all encompassing world
which purports to transform all four of its protagonists into their means' end, the result of their toil, the light at the end of the tunnel - the proverbial sixty watt bulb in
the face of indescribable horror. Of course purport to is all the film does - none of its characters breath even a sigh of hope, which, I think is another of Aronofsky's
nifty tricks. Requiem For a Dream is as much a warning as it is a piece of celluloid. There is no moment in the film that feels like any other anti drug film you'll see.
Like a horror movie, originality wins the day because something impromptu, something never imagined - something like having your arm lopped off because it has
decayed - is absolutely terrifying. Leto, Connelly, Wayans and Burstyn all do the subject justice. From denial to euphoria to absolute terror, Requiem For a Dream not only establishes Aronofsky as a major filmmaker, but it shows him up as a major director as well. Leto, especially, exorcises his past acting demons to give us a fresh perspective: he is little but a dreamer. The question posed: Is he a dreamer because the circle of drugs makes him a dreamer or is the dream a circle of drugs? And eventually, the cyclical motion comes around to whack us on the head like a full force beating. Aronofsky, in the final ten minutes, puts on film a sequence of collision editing that is so well timed, so mechanically engineered and so charged with momentum that, to look away is impossible - even though all of your being is screaming to shut those eyes tight and ever open them again. Aronofsky's film, unlike any film I've seen, responsibly dolls out a message to us in steaming portions while his rapid fire technique (the projector as a gun, firing 24 frames per second) clamps our frontal lobes and both thrills and terrifies us at the same time. It feeds us a potent upper and a harsh downer - and in doing so, cleanses us through the fire. But make no mistake: this film isn't bullying us into buying what its selling. While its as much a message movie as it is a narrative, it is also as much offensive as it is admirable. And let's face it, that's the very point here. To synthesize shock value and a good, honest directive into something that never feels forced or pushy - now that's an achievement.

What Return to Me needs is a good, solid dose of tastelessness. A nudge into a place where nothing is sacred. And less of Bonnie Hunt’s relatives in the credits. And Carroll O’Connor (aka Archie Bunker) yelling and bitchin’ and being politically incorrect. And less arguing about male singers. And less dogs. And......Return to Me, to put it short and sweet - was just one of those romantic comedies that turns you off so completely in between the actual romance that you can’t seem to jump back into the wooing as quickly and completely as you’d like to. Admittably, Duchovny and Driver have a spunky chemistry, one the casting agents and the actors themselves can easily be proud of. But the gallery of supporting characters, particularly those walking plot devices called senior citizens, are not charming. In fact - they get downright irritating. And it doesn’t help that Bonnie Hunt goes a completely different direction from herself. As an actress - she’s playing the same character we know and dig from Jerry Maguire - the advice friend - she who consults the female lead on the aspects of romance that made her marriage successful. (Of course, all we really see of her marriage is that it spawned a cursing, beer-drinking father (James Belushi - we’re through, you can go back to your hole and we’ll call you when we need you) and more kids than you can fit in a camera frame - or would care to.) But, as a director, Hunt misfires everything. Her
scenes have so much dead air and wasted space in them. Hire an editor! Romantic comedies with this little to say - should be limited to ninety minutes. Instead, we’re stretched out for near two hours of utter disarray. Watching the old men play matchmaker gets old after about three minutes - in IQ. Here, it’s as if our connsciousness has been tipped off ahead of time - a premonition of how annoying they’d be - and from the first moments, we’re tired of their antics. I’ve no aversion to classic formulas. Or romantic comedies. The best ones in the last three years have had the formula, the chemistry and the will to be different in their own right - to excise all that’s not important (of course, I’m referring to : One Fine Day, Fools Rush In and Notting Hill) and come up with a product that you can stand by.    Return to Me, despite it’s success in the chemistry department - fails so miserably that even when I got up to go to the bathroom - I already knew what had taken
place while I was gone. And never mind about the plot regarding a heart transplant, a dead wife and a coincidence.

[Alright, I’ll bite. How about those first twenty minutes when Duchovny’s wife dies (a wife whom he didn’t click with) and the surgeons play ‘exposition bingo’ and tell us exactly why we’ve just witnessed a cut from Duchovny and his wife dancing to Duchovny running next to a gurney, coated in blood? And then the super-tear-jerking moment when Duchovny collapses by the door, coated in tears. The next time we see him - he’s ordering people around and generally miserable. Surprise me next time, people! Have Duchovny operate on her using ordinary stuff you’d find in a bar a la Playing God. Or have him hypothesizing about aliens that may have killed her a la The X Files. Or have him kill her a la Kalifornia.]

In Paradise Lost : The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky examined the arrest and conviction of three teens, content to dress in black, for the murder of three eight and nine year old boys. The murder was deemed “satanic” and “ritualistic”, the details of which are exceptionally gory. The film never takes sides, rather, it presents the victims and the accused as part of a pseudo-Salem Witch Trial - the suggestion by the accused being that they were condemned simply because they were different - and were considered outcasts. It also goes so far as to show us the trial - which the filmmakers, even before the film is finished, become indirectly involved in. (Jon Mark Byers, a father of one of the victims - and main subject of Revelations, gives the directors a knife as a gift - - a knife that happens to have human blood on it.) Finally, after 'Pardise Lost' was finished - it became wildly successful and critically acclaimed (rightly so - It is an amazing document and a powerfully observant film). The second film begins with the filmmakers profiling the aftermath - the subsequent appeals, the ravings and suspicious happenings that followed Byers, a support group titled “Free the Memphis Three” and the generally tense atmosphere that exists in Memphis,  Arkansas in the wake of what is tragedy, spectacle and hysteria all rolled into one. ‘Revelations’ is something of a different kind of documentary film. It’s objectivity remains - but what’s onscreen seems to melt away any form of impartial being. Everyone seems to have an agenda, some hidden and some in very plain sight, especially Byers - who fits in the frame nicely - and knows it.. While there is suspicion that he’s the culprit in the murders - he’s also the pagemarker for botched policework. He changes his story time and time again, on camera. The film startlingly reveals all of the odd situations that have surrounded his life between when Paradise Lost ended and Revelations began. In essence, the filmmakers have picked up the reigns, but they are in a very different condition. The public outcry is an interesting touch as well. There’s a great moment when one of the “Free the Memphis Three” supporters asks Byers why he was nice to him off-camera and became mean when the tape started rolling. Byers, uses a confusion as his tactic (even too blatantly impossible for me to decipher - and I have the rewind button!), spilling words as if randomly. Even he has no idea what he’s doing. The man is on five different kinds of prescription drugs. But he makes a great subject, constantly showboating for the camera (-and incriminating himself?!). Watch for the scene that nearly dips into hilarity when he erects mock-gravestones for the convicted murderers and proceeds to pour lighter fluid on a huge area, light a gigantic fire and ritualistically curse them and dance around like a lunatic. P. Greg coined it, saying - “He would have made a great talk show host”. The film is also an interesting combination of itself. In a couple of it’s moments, it profiles what it’s effect on the outcome of the case has been. The  judge states that he would not have allowed them to film the trial if he had it to do over again. In that way - the film seems to be an attempt at vindication. On the other hand, it looks at it’s effect in a seemingly positive light - the way it’s brought universal attention to a case that seems to spark anger in the hearts of so many. In it’s own way, it’s both an apology and a additional fuel to the flames it lit during it’s release in 1996. It’s a complexity in itself - a potent piece of art that begs to be deciphered on the spot - but lingers with layer upon layer of meaning. And how beautifully structured (and bizarre) are it’s closing moments when Jon Mark Byers lip-synchs to a recording he had made of himself singing “Amazing Grace” - while the film presents it’s closing epilogues, over black, in between the images. It’s as if the literal translation of “read between the lines” has pedagogically lured the double talk from Byers. The impact of this instruction easily recalls the closing moments of Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line - when David tells Errol - “I’m the one who knows” - just so nearly confessing - but staying a cryptic ghost. And since Revelations is such a powerful film and since the first film was so widely received and seen by so many people - it is my belief that the second film will be greeted with the same warmth and consideration. And perhaps something will be solved. But, as the film remains objective - it’s not a case of who killed who or wwho’s innocent, etc. - it’s a case of evidence and mystery yet unraveled and yet uncovered. And it makes for a damn compelling two and a quarter hours.

["...excuse my French, but I stomped his ass right on the spot...if you ever get within arm's reach of this arm right here - you'a paid fer son of a bitch. You got my word on it."]
-cronie to Jon Mark Byers, Revelations : Paradise Lost 2.

Nearly all of the HBO films I’ve seen (and I hate to say this, as they are so proud of their “cutting edge” movie studio) are, simply put, dry. With one notable exception (...And the Band Played On), they never seem to be able to transcend their presence on a little screen  - - as little more than a one-dimensional teleplay adaptation - - a dry 1:33:1 run of normalcy, cleverrly trapped in it's doing. And RKO 281 is no different, and what’s worse,  suffering from a larger sin : pointlessness. Why make a film like this one? The simple idea being to dramatize the real-life events satisfied by the thrilling and extradordinary 1997 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane; The film suffers from a nonstop staginess of these events. Though I can see an attempt to make the film in the style of Welles’ Citizen Kane, it’s an attempt that seems somewhat irreverent in light of it’s interpretation of sed events. Everything seems to be easily sculpted into exact amounts - as if the filmmakers are making the film based less on Battle Over Citizen Kane than on Citizen Kane itself - - which is irritating. The way it constantly tries to show us just how close the events following Hearst’s campaign against the film - - and the film - - are alike, seems to be a begging attempt at garnering a “Wow! That really did happen!” response. From the shock of real life vs. filmed life, in this instance - it’s time to move on; This kind of strain leads to a whole stack of forced ironies - things that may not have been quite so cookie-cutter perfect in real life, but, with a little embellishment - are perfect for the film’s purposes. Case in point : the repetitious scenes that play over and over of RKO President George Shaeffer (Sheider) pulling at his hair as Welles breaks the rules - only to be impressed by the result of Welles innovation; And the performances all seem to drip of overacting. Especially Liev Shreiber, who needs to stop and make a speech (or at least interrupt the flow of the film long enough to catch his breath) in order to get Welles’ voice right. All the rest of the time, he appears to look like him only in medium and long shots - the close-ups reveal only the stutteriing, insecure Shreiber we remember from The Daytrippers and The Hurricane. Watching him play Welles’while John Malkovich sputters about trying to shuffle off the familiar ring of himself, in order to play Herman Mankowitz - is pitiful. Only James Cromwell, who decides not to chew the scenery and simply play the distant, short-tempered Hearst as a fading old man (slowly realizing that Welles is right - whether he as the right to say it or not) succeeds in his realization of the figure Charles Foster Kane was so tragically - and beautifully - modeled after; Finally, the scenes that are worth seeing are those three in which RKO 281 gives us Welles making Citizen Kane. It’s electrifying to watch him dig up a floor in order to get a camera lower - or risk an actress’s safety in order tto shoot a scene the way he wanted to. The obsession of Welles, which is what RKO 281 is aiming for - but never comes within miles of - is aall that’s left to explore, anyway; All else has been stated before - documented in folklore - - and in Battle Over Citizen Kane.

The kind of film, I warn you, you've not been granted the grace to swallow, whoever you are. Romeo Must Die has a whole stinkin' lot to do with the
amateur-music-video genre and very little to offer in the way of martial arts. Even the sequences where Jet Li (Jackie Chan-lite, light defined as fucking boring) kicks
the crap out of assorted moral degenerates appear plucked from a computer screen where a young boy has just figured out how to do the
super-deluxe-power-up-kick on a chinsy, simple video game. Points awarded for Alliyah, who's promising, attractive and (note to casting agents) gives off the romantic comedy vibes strongly. For all the turf war and brotherly betrayal you have to wade through to see what happens when Jet Li's foot breaks somebody's
spine - it just looks as you'd expect it to look - and you paid to see it. Damn.

[I'm almost positive I didn't pay to see this, so, here's to fraud!"]

I've always stood back in amazement at how the Rugrats kids are captured in all their youth: Misunderstanding adult phrases, masterminding brilliant schemes and above all, presenting an almost creepy vision of how children react to their surroundings. In Rugrats in Paris, we learn that Chuckie's mom has died and his
less-than-cool dad is in search of a wife - and more importantly, a mom - for his little boy. Inadvertently, this timing is shifted to downtown Paris where Tommy's
father Stu, a toy maker, has been called back (along with the whole gang) to fix a Reptar he designed for a swanky opera that will unleash the giant T-Rex-modeled
creature as a lonely, King Kong type, like Chuckie's Dad, helplessly turning away anyone he tries to get close to. Well, he's a big green dinosaur, what did he expect? The parallels aren't subtle - and a kid-o-centric movie has no trouble getting away with such trite simplicity. The bar, usually set way below standard live
action films, is always in danger of being raised by animation. Someday, animated movies will elicit as high a regard as anything that's shot with a camera. Until then, Rugrats in Paris, not necessarily a freshly plotted film (but certainly sharply written) stands just above its predecessor, The Rugrats Movie, another fine Thanksgiving treat where the kids coped with the arrival of Tommy's new brother, Dillon (Dil for short. Their last name is pickles - get it?). This time around there was a higher level of confidence that a more universal audience would absorb the film and therefore the jokes and gags are centered at a creamier middle, a more seamlessly attainable level. For instance, its a cinch that young kids will love the exploits of these kids, who appear older than they are and wise beyond their years when they impersonate Marlon Brando - a film young Anjelica has seen without her parent's permission. But to a universal audience, the implication that a second Rugrats film - meant to be a deeper companion piece to the first, as was the case with the aforementioned Godfather series - is taken in clever stride. Its funny tto watch the kids play out specific lines of dialogue and mesh Rugrats in Paris opening scene with the nuances of the famous intro to The Godfather. So, already established as a smart ride, Rugrats in Paris is just the sort of film we need in the feast or famine kids market. Looking over the plethora of child oriented flicks I've seen this year, this is just the sort of middle ground for dollar conscious parents and eager young girls and boys to meet on: not quite grasping the highbrow magic of Chicken Run or Fantasia 2000 - but certainly staring down at the influx of parental eye rolling that are Dinosaur or The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. Rugrats in Paris makes a concerted effort to be a film for the masses, gathering both young and old extremes into its charming wake. How nice to see generosity in any film, live or drawn - am I right?

If a Bruckheimer movie without the novelty of Bruckheimer's name ever did exist - Rules of Engagement is that movie. From start to finish, this is a by-the-numbers routine complete with a misunderstood past that will come back to haunt the protagonist, a fiery battle where we are invited to dissect the protagonist's actions and decide for ourselves whether or not he was right (oh, I'm sorry, did I say "decide for ourselves" - no, the film makes it very clear that it's black or white) and finally, the drunken lawyer who uncovers a tiny piece of evidence no one had ever thought to look for and exposes that evidence in a court of law like a wolf tearing into the opposing side. And even if you're thinking - well, it's Sammy and Tommy L. on the front - stop thinking that. The parts written for these two hot-headed titans are so muted and wishy washy, its embarrassing to watch them try to bring life to it and, you know, fail miserably. Essentially, the film exists as a director's picture. Friedkin, obviously attempting to ignore the limitations of the script, stages a thundering and wondrously patriotic battle sequence early in the film (in Yemen, not Vietnam). The editing suggests - but does not explicitly show - that perhaps in battle, split decisions exist in a realm indecipherable to everyone examing the aftermath in calm, relaxed settings. Tough to grant the film a pat on the back for a theme it doesn't really develop to the fullest - but at the very least, the suggestion is there. The courtroom sequence is nicely staged, too. Of course, you've seen one courtroom sequence, you've seen them all - and this one is dangerously close to aaping A Few Good Men (sans the great acting and intelligent dialogue, Rules of Engagement is content merely to fit us with military hurly-burly and "sustained", "overruled" and "I'm not going to warn you again" quips). Friedkin may not have had much to work with, but his courtroom is dark and dull - and though it allows for grandstanding - it feels more like a courtroom than a set because of where he places his camera and how he chooses to frame everyone practicing law. Rules of Engagement' is a dry, almost entirely non-partisan film when it comes to political flare. Coincidentally, as things flare up and burn out in the middle east (on a regular basis, it seems), the film doesn't seem to have taken the leap to understand why things flare up or why Americans are stationed there. It boils the whole thing down to a terrorist recording that says things about how the duty of every Muslim is to kill Americans. Never mind how deep and complex the whole scrap in the Gulf is. As with everything in this film, the only real points of interest are bare essentials meant to stand for abstract concepts. The apprehension of sed concepts would have resulted in a more interesting and efficient film. As an audience member, we are laymen - or, what do they call them - civilians. Thanks for the nod, boys.

Saving Grace, lightest of the recent wave of Britcoms aimed at artful American filmgoers, desperate to label European imports with words like 'original' and
'smart'. These films are fast becoming thin riffs on a formula, right down to the characters, the music and the pace. Saving Grace is funny, nevertheless, it has
difficulty dispensing with these elements (oddball characters you'd expect, catchy score, usual songs, unnecessarily wide cinematography, act breaks that practically
appear on the screen). In the face of that, it's also got old people getting high - lots of them. And naked old people too - oops, that's conventional. Sorry. Brenda Blethyn is her usual brilliant self, utilizing all those old lady charms (and giving maybe her tamest performance to date) to grow marijuana as a world class gardener, save her house and on the way, get into misadventures that are sometimes funny - occasionally dim - always attentive to good, old-fashioned Brit stereotypes. She meshes well with her gardener, an avid doper played by Craig Ferguson (of The Drew Carey Show fame) - who ('Surprise!', 'Surprise!') has a girlfriend (Foreman) who doesn't approve and is pregnant. There's miscrients of all shapes and verbal wonderment hanging around the small English town - which, by the way - is bumpkinland to the grand climax when Blethyn wanders into London to rouse a dealer (Tcheky Karyo) to launch her dope. The whole thing really, really smacks
of a carefully plotted film - that's purposefully engineered to export to us bloomin' Yanks. There's a problem with the particular ending to this film - but one worth addressing with all of it's kind. Any urgency or panic characters exhibit is squashed before it even registers in our frontal lobes. These films have a way of working themselves out that's become 100% predictable, always satisfying and in full opposition to comic suspense. (The inkhole that is this film's particular ending doesn't exactly suffice as part of the grain of this film. It's less capricious than it is just plain weak.) And for a film like this, it's the comedy that's most important. The laughs are, for the most part, solid and well deserved. A film that features a gigantic clowd of marijuana smoke drifting through a town, akin to John Carpenter's The Fog, can more than make up for any of the whimsical stuff that's starting to seem a lot less whimsical with every soundbite which reads : "This year's The Full Monty".

Yeah, the third act of this "trilogy" shoots itself in the foot - repeatedly - before stumbling around in search of ssomething to riddle its other hoof with. Kevin Williamson's tired series gets down to the most ludicrous and idiotic its been to date. The unfortunate thing about Scream 3 is that at every right turn - there's a wrong exit. It's full of extensive set-ups for clever execution (forgive the pun) of sometimes very specific knock-off humor and it never ceases to roll itself back to its okay-enough-already-with-the-Sidney-and-her -mom-and-the-Woodsboro-murders bit. The same dry chase scenes. The same over-amped soundtrack. And certainly the same visceral violence that, as it gets bloodier and bloodier, seems to get less and less horror movie and more and more in the realm of "makeup showcase" (example: a character emerges from an office with a pair of scissors through his raw and oozing head, but its just a maeup test; moments later, a character is brutally murdered and all I can think of is how much it looks like makeup). At the very least, setting the last forty minutes in a horror movie mogul's mansion is a nice touch (it comes complete with hidden passages, hokey horror movie mogul keepsakes and props - a basement full of zombies, aliens and coffins - and lit candles and torches all over tthe place). The other definite unpleasantness is how bored we are, as an audience, with these characters. Not only are they mediocre actors (with names like Campbell, Arquette and Cox-Arquette), but for the love of God, give their characters something to keep them interesting (drugs, perhaps?). I was wishing I had taken some notes through the first film - which was interesting when it came out, now I feel its pretty much completely to blame for the state of what's playing at the cineplex; or the second film - which, in retrospect, had a great opening sequence that should have been used for a higher purpose. I was so bored with "the old gang", I was quickly dismissing the admittedly lackluster "new gang" (Henrikson is utterly wasted, Posey doesn't completely un-embarrass herself and Dempsey needs a new career). Of course, the bigger picture still contains the phrase "Why bother" in gigantic, neon letters. As the film proceeded - very uneventfully - I think I was still trying to answer tthat phrase's call to order from the last time it was presented - by some random teen thriller no doubt green-lighted due to 'Scream's success. You'll pardon me if I'm not more than a helluva lot more embarrassed to have seen Scream 3 than any other teen horror film out there. I feel like I'm supporting a cause that, at the same time, I'm decrying. On the other hand, what am I talking about with this "cause" nonsense - This is the year 2000. By definition, movies are supposed to fall leagues below expectation.

I guess you might admire me for having the courage to go see this film - let alone the bravado it takes to writte a review about this, a Jackie Chan vehicle. You'd
be part right. I'm not going to write much. My parents dragged me to it. Not kicking and screaming, mind you - I've learned my lesson from such films as, well, to hit
the highest mark, Braveheart, which I vehemently did notwant to see when it came out. When they're paying, I've learned, you can always relax and enjoy. If it
sucks- it's just another opportunity to savor the verbal onslaught of radical invective you'll fire into it's belly only hours after it ends. And this one is a blast. Perhaps an even better comic team that Chan and Tucker, Wilson and the kung-fu goofball go flying into the west with a simple story and mouths loaded with well-written and timed jokes. The springboard of ease (that is, the story) allows for a film that not only doesn't take itself seriously, but also aims to transcend some of the politically correct notions that would further have remained extinct in a lesser film. My wonderment abounds when I think of the stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans, Jackie Chan marrying one after a long night of dope-smoking with the elders of a tribe. I'm taken aback by the ruthless casual sex, killing and boozing that you can imagine would easily have been left out of a kiddy Western. It's Jackie Chan in his world, the one that is created in the vehicles he used to star in by himself. In short : it's not watered down like Rush Hour was. Shanghai Noon' turns out to be the most fun I've had at the movies this summer (I guess we can easily discount Gladiator, M:I-2, Dinosaur and Small Time Crooks). It's a no-brainer in the old sense of the new Jackie Chan ideal: We hire a brilliant comic actor with brilliant comic timing (Wilson), give Chan enough time to do some kick-a-ma-rang kung-fu action (with his already brilliant timing intact) and we cast Lucy Liu, who is just plain gorgeous and, oh yeah, we give it a snappy title. And it's all as wonderful as it's pitch must've been. It's idiotic, light fun. It's the summer movie that we just plain f'n needed.

Think I'll save my energy on this one. That episode of The Simpsons that was supposedly satirizing the (free or stone) masons - the stonecutters episode- was
more plausible than The Skulls, a film about an elite secret society that is so utterly preposterous, even the general story arc is a flat, straight line that rarely rises
above a whisper. Billed as a dark and dirty thriller - more slight and draining than most films I've seen this year - the secret society in the film behaves more like a
suit-wearing fraternity who replaces beer with scotch and slutty frat girls with paid hookers (or dance partners, as the gravely moral Joshua Jackson stumbles
through the film and manages to keep his feet on the proverbial middleground - leaving no chances for entertaining reedemptions or suspenseful traps). This film is so
concerned with keeping everything mannered and set - from frame one - it never becomes exciting. Even when ffootage of Jackson's friend being killed accidentally is
viewed compulsively, it plays more like a version of the Rodney King video where everybody is so sure they can prove it was staged - or that later on in the tape,
he'll get up and shake hands with his attackers. Jackson and friends sit around watching a digital recording of the murder (The Skulls somehow have access to the
most current digital security technology - as do the police - and they stockpile their stash of recordings in a hidden room within the school library) until they can see
slight movement after the attacker, Jackson's soulmate of sorts leaves (he is played with such a starch coyness by Paul Walker, I had to keep flushing my mouth out
with liquid to remove the sourness). Then comes the moment that truly defines this dreck: Christopher MacDonald as a heavy, a member of the group (though he's
controlled by the  menacing  - get ready for this - Craig T. Nelson) is seen on the tape, snapping the neck of Jackson's close friend (of course there's sound, as
well). This is one of those films where unintentional comedy is so irreversable, even a twist (no pun intended) you were hoping would occur can't save the film. In
one hundred and four long minutes, not only does the mood go from weighty to WB soap opera, the film manages to entirely skirt its chances to be both a thriller
and a veil-lifting commentary. The dreadful acting only stands to finish this clunker off. Since everything is off, why the one star, you'd ask? I guess the idea is that,
while a terrible film can have a possibily executable premise (and this one does), its never too far off that something here could occur to me to be, well, forgiveable.
And certainly, any film featuring a real live duel deserves at least a third of my attention. We'll call this the biggest accidental goldmine of collected teen crap ripe for a
spoof yet. (Gosh, I hope someone reads this and takes that final comment to heart).

Small Time Crooks is Woody Allen light, unfortunately directed by Woody Allen (usually something that's Woody Allen light refers to another director aping
Woody's style). Instead of infusing a clever humor matched with the usual neurotic realism-transcending-tragicomedy of his films (which I only compare because this
one resembles them visually and structurally more than say, Sweet and Lowdown or Everyone Says I Love You), Allen has hatched a set of devious and
unpleasant characters - not simply because they're uneducated and constantly threatening each other - but because Allen has forgotten how much fun it is to watch
his corn ball directing. More than most filmmakers working today, you can see the directorial decisions he's made upon the screen very clearly in most of his films. It
acts as his signature and is more recognizable stamp than people would give him credit for. Here, all we can see is a muddled gang of idiots shooting jokes at one
another - some funny, most punny - none of them building a higher purpose with the characters or their motives. None of them, in the least, enjoyable to watch. They
all seem so thin and uninteresting. By 1995, It was about time Woody Allen started experimenting - and he knew it. Like Celebrity, he’s trying an extreme variation on his usual style. In that film, he cast Kenneth Branagh as himself to disastrous results - and revealed a colder, heavier plot hiding behind the one at the start of the film. In Small Time Crooks - very simply put - he plays an unintellligent version of himself and attempts to dissect those elitist members of high society (the place he clearly inhabits in real life). If this is a self-mockery, it comes off nearly as pompous as the social commentary on celebrities in Celebrity. It’s a comment on high society and how maybe none of them fit in as much as none of the majority of us fit in. It’s all strangely boring. And I know I'm reading far too deeply into the film - but after a few hours, it started to tug at my mind....what in God's name had I just witnessed? Why do I feel like someone had been, in a very elementary way, saying that "Rich people bad - poor people good"? What I liked about the film (for the most part) was the inclusion of Jon Lovitz, Michael Rappaport and Tony Darrow as Allen’s cohorts in a robbery that takes up about one third of the film (not nearly enough). These comic actors who fit within the shooting range of both the appeal and the interest of the film, work beautifully. Later in the film, Allen will employ Hugh Grant as a snooty art dealer. It’s a disaster. We watch Grant in this upper crust setting, fitting in with all the materials that surround him - and he bounces off the screen. He’s dead on - but his placement is somehow lost in whatever Allen is trying to capture in this film. When Tracey Ullman approaches Grant for lessons in high culture, it was like every other scene in Mighty Aphrodite when Woody Allen was romancing Mira Sorvino - except not funny in the least. The pieces are there : but they're made of replicas and counterfeits. And in the end, essence or no essence, the bottom line to end all bottom lines is that Small Time Crooks is nothing more than small time funny.

Snow Day's first act, though depleted of suspense by a needless introduction, has more idyllic qualities than any other live-action kid-oriented movie I've seen
this year. There's little Natalie (Grey) who dreams of seeing her town coated in snow. She will enjoy the title event, as will all the kids in this Syracuse town, but
Natalie seems to love the very idea that snow can change appearance as well as fate. Admittedly, it is kind a flight of fancy - but one I was willing to entertain.
Unfortunately, the film also follows the not-so-entertaining teeny romance follies of her brother Hal (Weber) who has a crush on - surprise! surprise! - the school
bombshell (Chrique). But really, the film only exists as a twenty-four hour free for all where kids do things they could never do in their real, snow less lives. It's
almost as if the snow brings a psychosis in which everybody daydreams together (though maybe that's a little too zen for a film like this). Koch and writers McRobb
and Viscardi understand the joy and magic in such a story and play up the great elements - Chevy Chase hoping to get higher ratings in order to wear pants on the
air, Chris Elliot as an evil snow plow guy whose only friend is a bird and the quick appearance by Iggy Pop as an Al Martino worshipping DJ at an ice skating rink.
Throughout the course of the day, fate is played with - both for the better and for the worse. Natalie has more than a few light, comical moments worth noting but
Hal has no trouble making a predictable decision in the third act. The kids have no trouble banding together for an easy combat mission with the snow plow guy and
Chevy Chase, well, the snow has a way of restoring dignity. As much as a film sans surprises can, 'Snow Day' had a wonderful echo of the nostalgic turn of one's
own youth felt in movies like The Sandlot or King of the Hill. It's filtered and often hard to reach, but it is there. Sort of. Sure, this film is pure marketing (that Nickelodeon stamp screams with the fantasy killing sound of money being accrued) but 'Snow Day' is also pleasing entertainment even if it is occasionally dim and deja vu-ey. When the year is over and the SAG strike commences, perhaps what will remain are fewer teen comedies with logistical commonalties. For now, Snow Day comes the closest to stomping them out with vigor as 'Boys and Girls' did with lethargy - and ends slightly more respectfully.

Call me insensitive, but I thought the qualification for being documentary material was being someone outstanding, weird, worthy of honor or, in some way,
challenging or interesting. The old operative : "They don't make documentaries about just anybody, kid." Not, as it seems, in the case of Southpaw, where director
McGrath has picked one of the most ordinary and boring of people, Francis Barrett, rather camera-deterrent to boot - to have his boxing career (which consists
mostly of losses, badly filmed) tracked as he rises from a traveller camp in Galway to the Olympics (but all he wants to do is show up the travellers and Ireland, etc.
- aw, isn't that just so sickly sweet, you could die?). His trainer, a seemingly dim barber named Chick (who constantly repeats the same phrase : "Hit hard and hit
often" - you think so, pal?), continually exhibits this nearly eerie sense of vicarious giddiness that's not only hard to imagine being under the thumb of, but to watch, is
downright irritating. And it doesn't stop there. The travellers are noted at the beginning of the film as being a group of people who are living on welfare in order to work as little as possible, existing in perpetual poverty as the folks in town spit on them and treat them as subordinates. The film and all it's inhabitants, Barrett included, act as if this persecution should be stopped and that they should be treated with the same respect as, uh, people who work for a living. Maybe, in some strangely perverse way, the film is trying to show that this kid raised among laziness stepped up to the plate, ambitious and hungry, and earned his title as the Amateur Boxing champion of Ireland, or whatever he eventually wins at the end of the film. Course, for that point to work, you'd have to ignore his constant bantering about how the travellers are good people and that he's just glad to have received so much publicity in order to show them up for the good, light-hearted folk they are. Right. Finally, the film is consistent in showing the smallest amount of boxing footage as possible. Which, to tell you the truth, was just fine with me. I'm sick to death of watching boxing sequences, anyway - they're all watered down swill imagining they were as good as a millisecond of of the matches in Raging Bull - but in Southpaw, we're continuaally seeing screen titles that tell us how much of a match has elapsed and who's in the lead. At one point, there's even a slow-motion shot of Barrett boxing, as if the running time needed just one more moment of cinematic molasses. At seventy-seven minutes, Southpaw feels longer than most
three-hour movies I've seen in the last couple of years. And as if all of this wasn't enough, the first thing explained in the film is the title. It's something to do with jabbing once and then backing away - which has absolutely nothing to do with a film about a boxer that keeps at it, no matter how many times he loses. Imagine if they'd fudged the results and let the bastard win a couple. At least then I wouldn't be watching a film where a boxer crawls his way up from the laziness of his lifestyle to lose a bunch of fights and mumble into the camera about how he fought badly. Not only does this miss as entertainment, it's isn't the least bit inspiring. Except that if I ever see a traveller, I'll think - they could be working on their boxing careers, all of em' - if only they weren't so happy living in trailers with no electricity and no running water. Maybe I missed the point. But I doubt it.

Occasionally oceans more than a neighborhood drama, sometimes nothing more than a shameless tear-jerker - Such a Long Journey succeeds itself in a
majority of scenes by pushing the subtle nuances of a world we've never seen and keeping the universality heartily low-key. Even when we're crying, despite
ourselves, this is a film brimming with the dignity of it's main character, Gustad Noble, played with integrity and beauty by Roshan Seth in one of the most inspired
and outstanding performances of the year. Set in the mid-1970's, about the time when Pakistan was invading India, Such a Long Journey maps out the plight of Gustad to keep his family going strong (he has a son that doesn't want to attend his father's choice in colleges, a wife that's entranced by the oblong medicinal advice of an elderly neighbor and a daughter that's come down with a case of malaria); his loyalties to an old friend (who is scamming a freedom fighting effort at Gustad's risk); and the various community colorfuls including a stuttering invalid that lives below Gustad, a spunky, philosophical painter that replaces urine stains on a wall with paintings from the various faiths and finally; the henchman of Gustad's old friend, a burly man played by Om Puri (whom you'll recall from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, of all places). This is a film that populates itself with characters who are willing to define themselves - which works beautifully in a film that is conservative, but doesn't lack flair. It's usual, but delightful. And of the Shooting Gallery Film Series entries I've seen, it's the most confident in it's editing, cinematography and it's writing. Seldom rough-edged and consistently entertaining, Such a Long Journey is the kind of film you expect to be surprised by - - - and sorta are.

Supernova is one of those science fiction films that has plenty of visuals where the space ship is flying by twinkling stars and bursting, colorful planets. Also, it's
one of those science fiction films that's plotted from the ashes of dozens of other films in its genre, stealing a plot point here and an ending there. From the beginning,
where it meanders - truly just wanders for a good twenty-five minutes, not accruing much of a segway into mindless dribble about medics rescuing a deceitful
treasure hunter who has found an alien force that will one by one transfix and destroy the crew - while the treasure hunter protects it, of course. This isn't much to go
on - and Supernova, though it looks striking, is rather dull. Comprised of far too many diagonal shots (I wondered if everyone on board had a neck injury or if the
director was high on this random inclusion of cool lensing), it begs us to picture a future that takes place inside a blueberry. Lee paints nearly all of his film in blue
and, while most of the technical aspects of the ship are so fantasy laden (read: animated looking; this is where I make a a really bad analogy akin to a live action
Titan A.E.), it's difficult to swallow these people even keeping oxygen inside their Star Trek-ish vessel. The casting choices are somewhat interesting. There's stiff, almost-warm-every-once-in -awhile Angela Bassett; James Spader, who plays a former drug addict with the monotone necessary to put speed addicts to sleep; Facinelli - who, strangely manages to give the exact same performance he did in The Big Kakuna (that's almost an achievement - a negative one, anyway - don't you think?); strong-armed Lou Diamond Phillips; sensitive Wilson Cruz; Robert Forster, who shares about six minutes of screen time with the cast and Robin Tunney, whose breasts are clearly the main focus of her character - an obvious rating booster (the PG-13 Supernova has been released on video in its R version) meant to score video rents. This may not be a very good or worthwhile film - Lord knows its lacking in all the major corridors that illicit money to be drawn from a wallet and paid to the purveyors of cinema - but its world and the characters who mingle in it are somewhat distracting. I'm not recommending it - not by a long shot. A major element of the film should have something to do with at least one supernova (you know, hence the title). But Supernova is too smart for that. Why link the title to anything in the film? This is the detachment that's all over this space wreck.

To sidestep even as I begin - there’s a council to decide if someone is worthy to be a saint. The council relies on three miracles and a comprehensive understanding that the person was good. The film dissection process, it struck me, is just as illogical as this - I look at a film and decide if there are enough good scenes for the film to stand as a whole. Whether or not the film adds up can depend on many factors - but first and foremost, there needs to be enough evidence to support a film’s mere existence. If not - I come in with my cavalry of eloquence and deny the film’s status as good. They’re both strange and neither is very accurate. (Or I just throw all the rules to the wind and say - this is a bad film - or, I know there are flaws, but I’m going to trade my objectivity for the privelidge to call this worthwhile.)
 But all continues as it must - and as it has for the longest time. And it strikes me as odd that I’d make this type of parallel while watching The Third Miracle, a film that is certainly grand in scenes - but never really adds up - and I was kkind of torn between reccomending it or shooting it down. And the conclusion I came to had to be done outside the process where I take a step back from theory and observation and simply say: The Third Miracle wasn’t anything really special to me - and didn’t do anything I hadn’t seen before. I decided to evaluate beyond the simple stylings of criticism. I had to throw those rules to the wind as I described. Because the feeling wasn’t there. Back to center, my main problem is that the film is a dry run of a story regarding Father Frank Shore's (Harris) struggle with his faith while investigating modern miracles; a council deciding the worthiness of one Helen O’Regan for sainthood, and finally, the denial of these miracles that ensues. So, while you’ve got these compelling elements being squandered - the most exciting thing in the film is a romantic encounter that Frank has with O’Regan’s daughter, Roxanne (Heche). Which, being only a small aspect of his struggle with faith - is luckily played up far more than it should be (I suspect the producers knew what they had). Sure, I was irritated that it became such a ravenous focal point - and it’s not as if we haven’t seen a priest breaking his vows before - but the romance is so tender and bleached with real passion - you crave it even though you know the film is, at some point, going to have to go back to it’s boring little plot. The film’s time shifts are done nicely, too. A grainy video image stands for the past and these three mini-sagas are each particularly haunting in their own ways: one, Helen’s childhood where bombs drop on a small town but never actually hit; another about an inquest Frank made seven years prior to the film’s present; and finally, the miracle that triggers all - a bleeding statue at a Catholic school in Frank’s native Chicago - another of those really convenient actions happening in a setting that a main character just happens to inhabit. The film has it’s irritable little discrepancies. There’s a coincidence late in the film regarding the angry-old-priest character (pitted against Harris, meant - yes, at 45 - to be the snide-young-priest character) being involved in one of the events firsthand. The priests in this film all seem to be defined merely by their clothing - not a single one of them resembles any priest I’ve ever met. They’re more like lawyers and detectives on costume day. Every line in the film seems to be there merely to act as a soundbite for a trailer yet to be constructed. The specific lines of dialogue constantly sound like they’re meant to sum up the film’s theme. I can’t tell you how much it irritates me to watch a film where it drops you into this foreign world of people you don’t associate with on a regular basis - and leaves out the interesting facts of their world. Only once do we get a Catholic investigating fact - regarding how to fake a bleeding statue - and when we get it, the film immediately shifts back into it’s further momentum of convention. And why must a film about these heavy issues evolve into a courtroom drama - a heated head-to-head of players battling for an extremely clear-cut right and wrong? The performances aren’t anything to brag about either. We’ve seen this Ed Harris character before - he’s pissed off, but his sensitive side keeps knocking - and like a fool, the angry Harris keeps answering the door and letting the sensitive one ruin that alluring volcanic decay. He’s an actor who needs to let go and simply be a vicious bear - which is why his performances as control-obsessed leaders (The Truman Show, State of Grace, Glengarry Glen Ross) always stick in the mind so well. Armin-Mueller Stahl gives another of his overbearing performances where he lets the accent lift him above all the other characters. Watch out for Stahl folks - he’s armed with that accent - and he’s not afraid to undermine you with it. Finally, I must praise Heche - whom I don’t feel to be an overrated actress. It is she who carries the love story. Sure it swirls like smoke in a burning car wreck of a film, but the flirting and the amour are as they should be - personal, intimate and complicated. Heche is a joy to watch as a woman bittered by jealousy over her mother’s love for God - and bowled over by a Priest’s contempt of God. Finally, as I’m usually lambasting a film for existing in a multiplex, let me revisit that theme. The Third Miracle belongs in the multiplexes. It’s just that awkward and oppressive that it may be lost on the select audiences and be a goldmine for the masses. It would have made a great straight-to-cable film, much more watchable as a throw-away on the small screen. Which is where it may find it’s own miracle after all - an audience willing to forgive the formula and lap up what’s left over.