Boxoffice-January.2000

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BOXOFRCE REVIEWS January 2000 DAY AND DATE: JAN. 12 ••** MY DOG SKIP Starring Frankie Muniz, Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane. Directed by fay Russell. Written by Gail Gilchriest. Produced by Mark Johnson and John Lee Hancock. A Warner Bros, release. Drama. Rated PG for some violent content and mild language. Running time: 94 min. Willie Morris wrote about the South, and in particular about his home state Mississippi. He was its first Rhodes scholar. His stories were unabashedly sentimental, especially the ones about his childhood. This movie, based on his novella, captures that wonderfully warm and emotional spirit and translates it to the screen with care and feeling. The days are sunny, the people are quirky, the real troubles of the world— like World War II—seem far away. But, because this is told through the eyes of a child, the small things are writ large. Our hero is in crisis because his disciplinarian father won't let him keep the puppy his mother bought for a birthday present. Of course, dad relents and Skip joins the family. According to Morris, it was this pet that helped him grow into a young man. It certainly did help the shy, bookish Willie form relationships with both sexes. Skip (brilliantly played by Moose of "Frasier" fame) is a real babe magnet. The whole film is beautifully photographed and the musical score matches the lush images. It was obviously a labor of love for the people who made it. It is also funny: On a bet, Willie spends the night in the cemetery, reportedly haunted by a local witch, and runs afoul of bootleggers. And has subtle social commentary: The movies in Yazoo were segregated as indeed was the whole place but the best athlete was a black man who half the town had never heard of. "My Dog Skip" is a beautiful movie, but be sure to take a box of Kleenex. The performances Mr Dog Skip." are terrific, especially Kevin Bacon ("Stir of Echoes") and Diane Lane ("A Walk on the Moon") as the parents and newcomer Frankie Muiniz as young Willie. Morris himself died last August, just a week after seeing the final print. This is a film for everyone but sadly, despite all the clamor for family-friendly movies, they often underperform. This effort really deserves an audience. Perhaps if they just changed the name to "The Yazoo Witch Project."—Mike Kerrigan ••••• OUTSTANDING •••• VERY GOOD *•• GOOD • • FAIR • POOR (no stars) BOMB REVIEWS Angela's Ashes The Bachelor Bats Body Shots Bringing Out the Dead Crazy in Alabama East of Hope Street End of Days The End of the Affair The Green Mile The House on Haunted Hill The Hungry Bachelors Club Hurricane The Insider La Ciudad (The City) Liar's Poker Liberty Heights R R R R R R R R R R R Light it Up R The Messenger: Molly Oxygen The Story of Joan of Arc Pokemon: The First Movie Sleepy Hollow Stuart Bliss Thicker Than Water R R R Three to Tango R- Topsy Turvy Toy Story 2 The World is Not Enough R DAY AND DATE: 1/12 SPECIAL FORMAT: IMAX 3-D Galapagos R-4 Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box R-4 FLASHBACK: 1940 Fantasia R-6 PREVIOUSLY REVIEWED Coming films already reviewed R-8 REVIEW DIGEST Our monthly release overview R-9 Hit www.boxoffice.com every Friday for the latest movie reviews! R R R R R R R 62 (R-l) BOXOIIK I
• ••• THE HURRICANE Starring Denzel Hashing ton, Dan Hedaya, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Liev Schreiher, John Hannah, Deborah linger and David Paymer. Directed by Norman Jewison. Written by Armyan Bernstein, Dan Gordon and Christopher Cleveland. Produced by Armyan Bernstein, John Ketcham and Norman Jewison. A Universal release. Drama. Rated R for language and some violence. Running time: 140 min. Bob Dylan's galvanizing 1975 anthem marked the first time most Americans heard of imprisoned black prizefighter Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, then already a decade into serving three life sentences for a New Jersey murder conviction. The case enjoyed another round of publicity when Carter was finally freed in the mid-1980s, thanks to the dogged efforts of a teenager from Brooklyn and three Canadians. Director Norman Jewison places this dazzling story about racism, injustice and redemption under the spotlight it deserves. Denzel Washington delivers a heart-rending, Oscar caliber performance in the role of a boxer who, as the lyrics on the soundtrack suggest, "coulda been the champion of the world." The cop with a grudge (Dan Hedaya) who wrongfully arrests Carter at age 1 1 for lesser offenses later frames him as an adult for killing three people. An all-white jury puts the top middleweight contender behind bars, where he remains until young Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon) happens upon a secondhand copy of Carter's 1974 autobiography, "The 1 6th Round." Inspired, the boy convinces the Toronto io-gooders he lives with—Sam (the always Drilliant Liev Schreiber), Terry (John Hannah) and Lisa (a lackluster Deborah Linger)—to take up the cause. The tale )ffers both a drumbeat for literacy and a ceen sense of fate: "Sometimes we don't )ick books; they pick us," Sam muses. The periodically disorienting but lynamic chronology culminates in the hrill of detective work that unearths new ividence leading to Carter's final day in ourt. Susan Green INGELA'S ASHES ***i/2 Starring Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Michael Legge, Ciaran Owens, Joe Breen nd Shane Murray-Corcoran. Directed by Wen Parker. Written by Laura Jones and tllen Parker. Produced by David Brown, Man Parker and Scott Ruilin. A Paramount elease. Drama. Rated R for language and ome sexual content. Running time: 145 min. Based on Frank McCourt's Pulitzer 'rize-winning memoir of the same title, Angela's Ashes" is the coming-of-age tale f the author's impoverished young life in .imerick. Ireland. After the death of their ewborn baby girl, the McCourt familv REVIEWS return to their native Ireland, leaving behind the unfulfilled promise of the United States. The grievous condition of their homeland, which suffers from the worldwide Depression and widespread consumption, pros ides the clan even less hope. At the center of this turmoil is Frank (Joe Breen/Ciaran Owens/Michael Legge), who, with the aid of his indomitably spirited mother (Emily Watson) and his playful brother Malachy Jr. (Shane Murray- Corcoran), learns how to persevere despite the dire circumstances of his life, including the continuing deaths of his siblings, an alcoholic father (Robert Carlyle) and the oppressive nature of his Catholic religion. Despite the grievous mood integral telling the story of the McCourt family, "Angela's Ashes" never descends to a level of complete despondency. Heightened by the incredibly moving performances of Breen as five-year-old Frank and Owens as 10-year-old Frank, the film shines with an optimism resulting from McCourt's ability to find comedy in even the most desperate of situations. TOPSY-TURVY Francesco Dinglasan •** Starring Jim Broadhent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Ron Cook and Wendy Nottingham. Directed and written by Mike Leigh. Produced by Simon Channing-Williams. A USA Films release. Period Drama. Rated Rfor a scene of risque nudity. Running time: 160 min. The contentious yet fruitful relationship between Britain's famed 19th century masters of light opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, forms the dramatic core of "Topsy-Turvy," which joins the duo in the early 1880s after such hits as "The Pirates of Penzance" had already rocketed them to the pinnacle of success. But success has spoiled them both, agitating an already uneasy relationship to the point of fracture. Sullivan (Allan Corduner) blames Gilbert's incessant preoccupation with magical fables of "topsy-turvydom" for stifling his musical creativity, while Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) resents having been forced to subjugate his words and stories to Sullivan's sprightly, popular music. Faced with a seemingly irresolvable ere- - ative impasse, the pair appear destined to never work together again. But when Gilbert attends a traveling exhibition of Japanese art. craft and performance, he experiences his own kind of topsy-turvy, inspiring him to embrace an entirely new kind of light opera which, in short order, becomes their greatest and most enduring work. "The Mikado." In working up to Gilbert's epiphany, writer/director Mike Leigh mostly adheres to traditional English biopic conventions, laying out his characters and their respective conflicts in as straightforward a to manner as possible. But as the film shifts to the arduous process of planning and staging the complexities of "The Mikado." Leigh's penchant for improvisational fiabbiness sets in, stretching a seemingly endless series of rehearsal scenes to unimaginable lengths. Thankfully, the stretch isn't entirely uninteresting, sustained by sporadic forays into the backstage dramas of the actors, with Leigh's reliable "Secrets and Lies" star Timothy Spall simply superb as lead baritone Richard Temple. Indeed, it is all but impossible to fault the film's performances, with Corduner and Broadbent both in peak form, and supporting actors uniformly outstanding. — Wade Major THE GREEN MILE •••1/2 Starring Tom Hanks, David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan, Doug Hutchison and Bonnie Hunt. Directed and written by Frank Darabont. Produced by Frank Darabont and David Ualdes. A Warner Bros, release. Drama. Rated R for violence, language and some sex-related material. Running time: 182 min. Hollywood types often seem wont to set themselves the onerous task of adapting the worst novels mankind has ever encountered, those being from the hands of horrormeister Stephen King. It's uncertain whether director/scripter Frank Darabont, who seems incapable of putting onscreen any sequence that is not captivating, should receive an Oscar for his work here, or instead a humanitarian award for making drivel play like a dream for moviegoers. And a dream it is, beginning dark and ending in light, as it tells the 1930s-set story of a down-South Death Row prison guard, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), who encounters in the person of a giant black inmate, the condemned John Coffey ("Bulworth's" Michael Clarke Duncan), a gift from God: the ability to heal any malady, however desperate, by the simple laying on of hands. Cured first of an uncomfortable condition by Coffey. Edgecomb finds himself in the end cured of a condition of soul as dank as the cells and certain of the other inhabitants with which the guard spends his days. Even then, though. Edgecomb finds, there is a cost. The supporting cast provides fine accompaniment to Hanks, who manages to meld the beloved everyman personality that seems to come so naturally to him with the much-less-natural persona of a King character. "The Green Mile" still suffers from lingering touches of Kingitis. the cures for which would be beyond even the magic of a John Coffey—or a Frank Darabont. There is grace gleaming for the eyes, but there is also remaining about the nose the stench of a miasmal humanity. — Kim Williamson January, 2000 (R-2) 63
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Boxoffice-January.2000

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