THURSDAY, APRIL 17,2003
MOVIES AROUND TOWN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 13
The following reviews and summaries were written by Jayplay film critic Stephen Shupe unless otherwise noted.
LIBERTYHALL
Adaptation Grade: A-
Charlie Kaufman's Mad Hatter idea to write himself into his own screenplay pays off in spades in Spike Jonze's latest comedic stunner. Nicholas Cage gives a blistering performance as the screenwriter hired to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, a decidedly non-cinematic book about flowers. Meryl Streep plays Orlean in some of the best sequences in the film, which feature an Oscar-winning Chris Cooper as a greasy horticulturist who journeys through the swamp lands to lift endangered orchids. Charlie's descent from artistic integrity to derivative hell is one of the movies' most memorable unraveling acts in years, and Adaptation's restless originality all but guarantees it cult status.
Bend It Like Beckham (Opens Friday)
Jess dreams of playing professional soccer just like her hero David Beckham, but her London-based Indian family has other ideas. She's expected to marry young in a lavish Indian wedding, and this more traditional path presents itself when Jess meets a soccer hunk named Joe (Jonathan Rys Meyers). Gurinder Chadha's acclaimed comedy of manners is gaining momentum as this year's mustsee crossover sensation.
In Bulletproof Monk, Chow Yun Fat stars as a monk whose duty has been to protect a powerful ancient scroll. The film also stars Seann William Scott.
Contributed art
City of God Grade: A
A modern masterpiece of epic scope and breathtaking energy, City of God is a violent plunge into a forgotten underworld the Brazilian slums that served as ground zero for drug trafficking through Rio de Janeiro in the '60s and '70s. Director Fernando Meirelles' astonishingly clear vision of this inescapable world is like an urbanized retelling of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, where savage boys quench the bloodthirsty beast within. Dizzying visuals, heartbreaking truths and surreal rock-and-roll flourishes make for an exhilarating and unforgettable film experience.
SOUTH WIND 12
Bringing Down the House Grade: B
whether Bringing Down the House, with Steve Martin as the Stuffy White Guy and Queen Latifah as the Loudmouthed Black Chick, reinforces racist stereotypes. But few can deny that the silverhaired prig and the brassy babe are a unique comic alloy.
-KRT Campus
Bulletproof Monk Grade: B
Flying kung fu and an ancient artifact of great power figure heavily in this
buddy pic starring Chow Yun Fat and Seann William Scott, but the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comparisons end there. American action directors have learned nothing from the karate lessons taught by the Hong Kong masters, so Bulletproof Monk wisely relies on Fat and Scott's richly comedic chemistry, which makes Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson in Anger Management look like amateurs. The story turns overly serious in the unintentional Hannibal parody of a finale, in which a wheelchairbound psycho concocts an elaborate
death trap, but it's already won sentiments by then. Scott, who looks stoned out of his mind in his first scene (how's that for method acting?), replaces Keanu as the movie's blank-dude embodiment of irreverence. If he had played Neo in The Matrix, instead of saying "Whoa" he would have said "Huh?"
Dreamcatcher Grade: B-
Four telepathic friends enter the snowy New England woods for a week end hunting expedition, only to be hunted themselves by little green men. At the heart of this Stephen King story is one of the more intriguing ideas about alien invasions ever, where interplanetary monsters draw upon dreams and hide behind the friendly-neighbors imaginings of such movies as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In King's book, this concept was overwhelmed by a seemingly endless race against time, and Dreamcatcher's director, Lawrence Kasdan, possesses no other ambition than to film it faithfully. Some of the acting especially by Damian Lewis as a shape-shifting alien with a James Bond accent is fun. But the demands of big budget sci-fi creatures and special effects quickly take over the picture.
Holes (not reviewed)
Unlucky since birth because of an ancient family curse, Stanley Yelnats is wrongfully hauled off to Camp Green Lake to serve out a months-long detention sentence. The camp's spring-fresh moniker turns out to be misleading when Stanley and his fellow campmates - Squid, Armpit, ZigZag, Magnet, X-Ray and Zero - are forced to dig hundreds of holes in the desert for the menacing warden in a mass search for a mysterious hidden treasure. For the kids, though Sigourney Weaver as a villain sounds irresistible.
Malibu's Most Wanted (Opens Friday)
Rich white boy Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman's hip-hop lifestyle is seriously hindering his father's bid for governor. When Dad's campaign manager hires two thespians (Taye Diggs and Blair Underwood) to show B-Rad what gangsta life is really like, the prodigal son must prove that he's for real, yo. With Jamie Kennedy as B-Rad, whose maxim ("Don't be hatin'." ) is already a catchphrase at my house.
There may be controversy about of great power figure heavily in this bound psycho concocts an elaborate