Month: December 2002

(In theaters, December 2002) Yikes. I can understand that black comedy isn’t a familiar genre in French-Canada (where the preference goes more to crude popular comedy), but it’s not an excuse to mess up this film so badly. While the film enjoys a relatively flawless second quarter (which compares more or less with such films as Snatch), everything goes to hell as the movie advances toward its conclusion. This simple tale of kidnapping can’t be bothered to maintain an even tone throughout, nor to respect the intelligence of the audience: The staging become more and more ludicrous, the finale is extended beyond anyone’s reasonable patience and the whole thing ultimately ends in a muddled mess. Headliner Stéphane Rousseau grandstands without any adult supervision and Véronique Cloutier is allowed to torture viewers through two musical numbers. (On the other hand, she’s pretty cute… but not enough to make us forgive everything.) The stereotypes are unworthy of existing in a movie released in 2002, and so are some of the plot shortcuts used in lieu of clever plotting. (Can you believe the “lost glasses” shtick? Me neither.) Oh, it’s not as if the entire film is unpleasant, but the tremendous waste of potential here is almost offensive. We’ve got enough stupid American movies up here; we don’t need to make our own.

(On DVD, December 2002) Now here’s a good film destroyed by inappropriate casting. Hubris, even, as the miscasting in question is writer/director Woody Allen giving the protagonist role to himself. Awful choice, especially where we’re to believe that he’s lusted after by none other than, oh, Elizabeth Berkley, Kaili Vernoff and the divine Helen Hunt. Yikes. What, Bruce Campbell wasn’t available? In any case, if you close your eyes and manage to convince yourself that this isn’t Woody Allen they’re lusting after, the film isn’t too bad: The atmosphere successfully evokes the war-years period, and so does the witty dialogue between Hunt and Allen. Yes, the whole hypnotism shtick is profoundly silly, but never mind that: it’s all in good fun. In the end, this sense of fun (oh, and the girls; I’m that shallow) is what sort of saves The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion from total failure. But I can’t wait until we’ve got the technology to replace Allen out of this picture…

(In theaters, December 2002) By the end of the very first musical number, it’s obvious that this is a triumphant return of the classical musical. Chicago isn’t as audaciously post-modern nor as self-conscious as Moulin Rouge!, but whatever go-for-broke edge it lacks doesn’t really matter when it’s so well-done. This ultra-cynical tale of profitable crime isn’t particularly complicated, but it’s told with plenty of style. Even the outrageous musical numbers are carefully integrated as being part of the characters’ imagination with what’s certainly the best editing of the year. Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere sing and (tap)dance and yes, they’re believable. What’s not so obvious are the other great supporting performances, from Queen Latifah to John C. Reilly to Colm Feore’s non-singing part. The result is pretty amazing. I wanted to clap at the end of some sequences. Who could have guessed that a musical written in the thirties would contain such biting social commentary even today? The ventriloquism/puppetry sequence alone is worth the price of admission, not to mention the “had it coming” tango, the court-circus piece or even the preposterously appropriate tap-dancing around legal arguments. No doubt about it; Chicago is a superior film that makes an effort at showing us far more than what is required to tell a good story. It’s remarkably funny, paced like an action film and surprisingly memorable. See it. Now.

(In theaters, December 2002) Everyone loves to see a deserving hero get away with something, and that’s exactly what this Spielberg film delivers. This is the loose biography of con man Frank Abagnale, who spent the late sixties impersonating airline pilots, doctors and lawyers and forging checks to great profit. Constantly outwitting authorities, he was eventually captured… but still managed to beat the system. This delightful film announces its colors from the onset, through a deliberately retro credit sequence that plunges us back in the time period. Leonardo DeCaprio is convincing in the variety of roles Abagnale chooses to play, and the direction is comfortably laid-back. This film could have been done at any time over the past twenty years; there is nary a “modern” technique in sight. A cursory glance at interviews with Abagnale is sufficient to uncover significant deviations from reality (there was, for instance no single FBI agent pursuing Abagnale through all these years), but the fiction is a compelling, entertaining piece of entertainment. Spielberg is a consummate professional, and he knows how to create a feel-good piece of cinema. Even the too-long ending is built to show how one could see Abagnale simultaneously becoming a law-abiding citizen while beating the system even more outrageously than as a criminal. Catch Me If You Can isn’t a particularly deep or challenging film, but it’s a lot of fun. A terrific criminal procedural enhanced by a compelling cat-and-mouse story, it’s pretty much designed for maximum entertainment. Enjoy!

(On DVD, December 2002) It’s not because it’s French that it’s good. In this case, this particular take on the classic monster story is interesting because it stars the adorable Sophie Marceau and takes place in Paris, but as for the rest, well… Apart from the striking visuals, it’s strictly a run-of-the-mill supernatural thriller. Possession clichés are trotted out one after another, and if the Egyptian lore is cause for a good frisson or two, those shivers remains overwhelmingly based on potential alone. Belphégor has too much visual pizzazz to be considered boring, but on the other hand it’s nothing particularly striking.