Babe: Pig in the City (Babe: le cochon dans la ville) Anybody who doesn't appreciate "Babe 2" is pigheaded. The prevailing disdain in America for "Babe: Pig in the City" ("It's dark," "It's not suitable for children," "It sucks compared to the original") is one of those inexplicable phenomena like the global hysteria over Princess Diana's demise or the Republican hysteria about the dalliances and fibs of a sitting Democratic president. For some reason, the public has it in for this second installment about the little pig whose knack for creating havoc is exceeded only by his excellent manners and superlative moral compass. I should mention that, as a general rule, I am unmoved by the antics of animals, in real life or on screen but I can't recall the last time I spent so much time on the edge of my seat filled with concern for the characters in a film. I was worriedabout Babe. I fretted for Farmer Hoggett and his farm. I wanted to sock the no-nonsense customs officials who caused Mrs. Hoggett and Babe to miss their plane. And I feared for the safety and dignity of Babe's newfound fellow tenants in the singular boarding house where they end up. I found myself deeply touched by Babe's compound dilemma how to survive in a strange, unfriendly place (a fantastical composite Big City whose dangers seem real indeed) while managing to rescue the farm back in Australia, where creditors hover like so many fiduciary vultures. The production design is splendid, the special effects seamless. The finale slightly overstays its welcome, but that is a quibble. "Babe 2" is indeed dark and scary; it's also funny and touching. Anybody who fails to warm to the trio of musical mice who pop up like a rodent Greek chorus may as well give up going to the movies. (Mar 17) The Thin Red Line Director Terrence Malick's first film in 20 years is an exquisite mess. It's part war movie, part nature flick. The voice-overs are internal monologues fashioned into lovely prose poems, but sometimes the language is so heavy that it comes crashing down like ripe coconuts. As Charles Taylor put it in "Salon": "[Malick's] idea of masculine profundities is like what Hemingway might have come up with if he wrote fortune cookies." If James Jones, on whose semiautobiographical novel the film is based, were to crack open a fortune cookie today, it might read "You are going on a long, muddled journey" or "Beware of impressive casts in idyllic settings." The place is Guadalcanal before the battle of same. The Yanks need to wrest this locale from the Japs. It will be a protracted and brutal process. Unless you've been living with these soldiers for months on end, you may not be able to tell them apart, but they're played by a batch of very good actors, some well-known, some not. Their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Tall (Nick Nolte), barks orders, the vast majority of which could get a man killed. This is the movie that teaches us that John Travolta should not wear a mustache which is not all that useful a thing to know. But it's also the movie that teaches us that cigarettes jammed in your nostrils will blunt the stench of death (which leads to the question: In peacetime, what can you use to block the stench of cigarettes?). "The Thin Red Line" is haunting in places, self-indulgent and maddeningly diffuse in others. So much of the dialogue is so cryptic that it's cause for celebration when a character says something concrete and direct like, "Sir, the men need water. They're terribly dehydrated. If they don't drink, they could die." As a viewer struggling to identify with an aggregate narrator (the voices keep changing) in a film where the central character is War, at least you know what it's like to be thirsty. This film may slake your thirst for gorgeous imagery marbled with poetry but will leave you parched for cohesion. (Feb 24) Last Night "Clever," "funny," "bittersweet" and "rewarding" all apply to Don McKellar's end of the world comedy, but if the world were actually ending and I only had time to pick one word, it'd be "bittersweet." Or maybe, "funny." Jeez, I hate immutable deadlines. The movie's ad slogan is apt as can be: "It's not the end of the world ... there's still six hours left." The action takes place in Toronto between 6 PM and midnight on the last day of this or any other year. As a location, the earth at this point is kind of like your body when you have food poisoning you'd love to be somewhere else but there's no place else to go. So, what do you do with your last 360 minutes of existence? Listen to the radio? (They're doing a countdown of the Top 500 songs of all time.) Hang out with your family? (What if your family has always gotten on your nerves even when the world wasn'tabout to end?) Do a really good job at the office until the bitter end? (One thoughtful fellow played by Canadian director David Cronenberg works for the gas company and spends his final workday calling customers to assure them that the utility has appreciated their patronage over the years.) Invite a few friends or strangers over to your house? Make a point of sampling some of the experiences you never got around to? In "Last Night's" Toronto, it's blazing daylight, even though it's technically night, and Patrick (McKellar) just wants to spend a quiet evening at home. But the laws of chance haven't called a recess yet, which means that, in the final stretch, Patrick will find himself intersecting with a few other people despite his semi-well-laid plans. Anybody who ever had a French teacher will be tickled rose at Genevieve Bujold's presence. The characters may be doomed, but it's never too late to learn something. "Last Night" has the same matter-of-fact tone as "On the Beach," the excellent, if more sober, 1959 film adapted from Nevil Shute's book about a handful of people waiting for nuclear fallout to do them in. Unlike in hepped-up disaster flicks, nobody's trying to save the planet. There's nothing anyone can do except figure out how best to live their final allotment of life as we know it. McKellar has definitely figured out what to do with 90 minutes of screen time, a terrific premise and a first-rate cast. (Mar 3) Ever After (A tout jamais) Happily, "Ever After" is delightful. Not only is it a remake worth remaking, this smart retelling of the Cinderella story, set in 16th century France, ends up being a wonderful primer on contemporary courtship and relationships. Danielle is a forthright and independent youngster who loves to read and think. Her beloved father returns home with a new wife, Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston), and her two daughters. Alas, dad croaks, leaving Danielle (Drew Barrymore, 10 years later) to become a glorified servant to her stepmother and stepsisters. Rodmilla isn't so much "evil" as she is given to scheming. Huston's eyebrows alone perform an acting tour de force as Rodmilla plots to get her blonde daughter married off to the prince (Dougray Scott) while giving the shortest of shrift to her brunette daughter and Danielle. Prince Henry meets Danielle under peculiar circumstances and finds she's like a perfume slogan or a cerebral cortex he can't get her out of his head. The prince is attracted not only to Danielle's beauty (well, "cuteness with a large jaw" is more accurate) but also to her mind, because it stimulates his own. The settings are sumptuous, the storytelling full of breathless twists and turns, the moral as clear as a glass slipper. Recommended viewing for all ages. (Feb 10) Touch of Evil (La soif du mal) Packed to the gills with atmosphere put there in 1958 by boy genius turned blubbery genius Orson Welles, "Touch of Evil" is about subtle and momentous changes in atmospheric pressure. For the cast, the camera work and the creepiness quotient, this freshly restored version taking its cue from 58 pages of notes Welles wrote to the studio after the editing and completion of the film were taken out of his hands is must viewing for any self-respecting film buff. Mexican-American narc Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) has just married his forthright American sweetheart, Susan (Janet Leigh). A car explodes in a town on the U.S.-Mexico border ("played" by Venice, California), triggering a swift but not necessarily just investigation under the corrupt eye of Hank Quinlan (Welles), a lawman who looms large in the vicinity. "Touch of Evil" has always been as edgy as the rim of the Grand Canyon. The restored version finely adjusts the narrative screws and lets the breathtaking opening shot stand on its own (without credits slapped on over the meticulously choreographed action). Directors have been paying homage ever since to Welles' masterful continuous shot gambit Brian De Palma in "Snake Eyes," Martin Scorsese in "Goodfellas," a tongue-in-cheek Robert Altman in "The Player." (Mar 17) |
