Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
TORONTO REVIEWS<br />
BIG BAD LOVE •<br />
Starring Arliss Howard, Debra Winger,<br />
Paul Le Mat, Rosanna Arquette and Angle<br />
Dickinson. Directed by Arliss Howard.<br />
Written by Arliss Howard and James<br />
Howard. Produced by Debra Winger. An<br />
IFC release. Drama. Not yet rated. Running<br />
time: 120 nun.<br />
"Big Bad Love" is a big bad movie.<br />
Although it's not your ordinary failure,<br />
"Big Bad Love" is that rare case where talented<br />
people on a labor-of-love project<br />
indulge themselves with no clear perspective<br />
on what they're doing. In this instance,<br />
actor Arliss Howard, in his first effort as<br />
director, attempts to bring Mississippi<br />
author Larry Brown's short stories to life.<br />
Leon Barlow (Howard) is a down-on-hisluck<br />
Vietnam vet, an aspiring writer desperately<br />
trying to get his manuscripts published.<br />
He lives alone, now separated from<br />
DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS ***1/2<br />
Starring Jeff Ho, Stacy Peralta, Jay<br />
Adams, Tony Alva, Skip Engblom, Craig<br />
Stecyk and Henry Rollins; Narrated by<br />
Sean Perm. Directed by Stacy Peralta.<br />
Written by Stacy Peralta and Craig Stecyk.<br />
Produced by Agi Orsi. A Sony Pictures<br />
Classics release. Documentary. Not yet<br />
rated. Running time: 89 nun.<br />
Even people clueless about skateboarding<br />
can enjoy "Dogtown and Z-Boys," a<br />
200 1 Sundance award-winner that chronicles<br />
the hidden history—to those who<br />
remain earthbound, that is—of how the<br />
sport took off in the early 1970s. What<br />
American town doesn't have kids zooming<br />
into the air courtesy of these seemingly<br />
insubstantial pieces of wood on wheels?<br />
They owe it all to the Southern California<br />
youth culture that, three decades ago,<br />
developed the extreme angles now taken<br />
for granted in this popular activity.<br />
Director Stacy Peralta is himself seen as<br />
one of the rough-and-tumble adolescents,<br />
often the children of divorce, who gather<br />
in the Dogtown section of Santa Monica<br />
and Venice dubbed "the last seaside slum."<br />
Surfer dudes with attitude, they need some<br />
form of recreation when the waves are not<br />
up to snuff. Many of them join the Zephyr<br />
Skating Team, so named for a surf<br />
shop/teen hangout owned by board<br />
designer Jeff Ho and two friends.<br />
Who better to narrate the documentor}<br />
than Sean I'enn, whose role in "Fast Times<br />
al Ridgemonl High" nailed the<br />
—<br />
school playgrounds before discovering<br />
empty backyard swimming pools; sometimes<br />
the kids do the emptying with clandestine<br />
efficiency. The group has its own<br />
"stars," such as Tony Alva, Jay Adams and<br />
Peralta, who each push the vertical envelope.<br />
The Z-Boys captivate the country at a<br />
1975 national championship by demonstrating<br />
far more daredevil physicality<br />
than the mainstream competition. Fame<br />
and riches beckon; some find success, but<br />
others discover how elusive it can really be.<br />
We see them all on camera, then in youth<br />
and now in middle age, pioneers in a seriously<br />
thrilling game. Susan Green<br />
***•<br />
THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE<br />
Starring Mira Sorvino, Fiona Shaw,<br />
Ben Kingsley, Jay Rodan and Rachel<br />
Stirling. Directed by Clare Peploe. \\ ritten<br />
by Bernardo Bertolucci,<br />
Clare Peploe and Marilyn<br />
Goldin. Produced by<br />
his wife, Marilyn (Debra Winger), and his<br />
two kids—a sickly daughter who has a respiratory<br />
illness, and a pre-adolescent son.<br />
Howard isn't satisfied simply dramatizing Bernardo Bertolucci. A<br />
the themes of Brown's work; he also wants<br />
enter imagination. The<br />
Paramount<br />
release. Comedy.<br />
Classics<br />
Not yet<br />
to the writer's<br />
rated. Running time: 107<br />
result is a chaotic panorama that's too<br />
busy flying a lot of metaphoric flags. min.<br />
— Kevin Counter<br />
"The Triumph of<br />
Love" is a lush and sensually<br />
charged comedy that's<br />
infused with some of the<br />
buoyantly uplifting operatic<br />
spirit of Mozart's "Le<br />
nozze di Figaro." Director<br />
Clare Peploe ("High<br />
Season"), in adapting the<br />
18th-century play by<br />
Pierre Marivaux, transforms<br />
the seductive power<br />
of language into a highly romantic romp<br />
about sexual deception.<br />
The story centers on Leonide (Mira<br />
Sorvino), the Princess of Sparta. She occupies<br />
a throne that has been usurped by her<br />
father, when it belongs instead to a young<br />
man named Agis (Jay Rodan). One day,<br />
when Leonide spots Agis bathing in a lake,<br />
she falls deeply in love with him" She then<br />
comes up with a scheme to marry him. In<br />
doing so, Leonide gets what she wants, and<br />
he gets what is due to him because of his<br />
birthright. The problem, however, is that<br />
Agis is being raised by the enlightened<br />
philosopher Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley).<br />
and his sister. Leontine (Fiona Shaw), who<br />
have not only schooled the boy in<br />
Enlightenment principles, they've also<br />
taught him to hate the princess. With her<br />
maid by her side. Leonide disguises herself<br />
as a male student and verbally seduces the<br />
brother-and-sister pair in order to buy<br />
time to win the love of Agis.<br />
Peploe brilliantly balances the comedy<br />
and cruelty in the play without losing the<br />
romantic spirit of the material. Mira<br />
Sorvino also shows a whole new side of<br />
carnal mischievousness. leonide is a rationalist<br />
who may feel pangs of love, but she<br />
methodical!} uses reason as a tool to cause<br />
—<br />
pain as well. Ben Kingsley as the<br />
pompously foolish Hermocrates gives one<br />
of his most enjoyable performances. He's<br />
also matched by Fiona Shaw as Leontine,<br />
whose preening is disguised by a show of<br />
self-deprecating charm. They make perfect<br />
targets of the Princess' scam. "The<br />
Triumph of Love" is a sublime comedy<br />
with an emotionally rich texture. Kevin<br />
Courrier<br />
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (AND YOUR<br />
MOTHER TOO) ••**<br />
Starring Maribel Urdu, Gael Garcia<br />
Bcmal and Diego Luna. Directed by<br />
Alfonso Cuaron. Written by Carlos Cuaron<br />
and Alfonso Cuaron. Produced by Jorge<br />
Vergara and Alfonso Cuaron. An IFC<br />
release. Drama. French-language; subtitled.<br />
Not yet rated. Running time: 101 min.<br />
IFC's "Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too)'<br />
Alter charming audiences with the<br />
sophisticated and lyrical fairytale "A Little<br />
Princess" and the sumptuous and satisfying<br />
"Great Expectations," director Alfonso<br />
Cuaron returns to his Mexican homeland<br />
to make the sexually rowdy and wildly<br />
funny road movie "Y tu mama tambien."<br />
The tone of this energetic and boldly<br />
provocative film, which won the Best<br />
Screenplay Award at the Venice Film<br />
Festival, has little in common with his previous<br />
two outings. Try imagining a more<br />
delinquent version of Truffaut's "Jules and<br />
Jim," or, perhaps, some of the roughhouse<br />
friskiness of Bertrand Blier's "Going<br />
Places."<br />
While their girlfriends are on holiday in<br />
Italy, two 17-year-old friends. Julio (Gael<br />
Garcia Bcmal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna),<br />
look forward to a summer of sexual frolic.<br />
I'licy get sidetracked, however, by Tenoch's<br />
cousin's 28-year-old wife. Luisa (Maribel<br />
Verdu), who has just discovered that her<br />
husband has had an affair. The boys, who<br />
meet her at a wedding, devise a plan to<br />
seduce her by asking her to join them on a<br />
trip to an imaginary beach on the Oaxacan<br />
coast. Surprisingly, she agrees to lake part.<br />
But while they revel in their adolescent<br />
fantasies, Luisa is using to deal with very<br />
36 (R-124) BOXOFFICE
Change language