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eXistenZ David Cronenberg uses his very real intelligence to toy with the future of artificial intelligence in "eXistenZ," the first script he has written for himself since 1983's "Videodrome," one of my personal faves in the squidgy, unsettling Cronenberg �uvre (others include "The Dead Zone," "The Fly," "Naked Lunch" and "Crash"). Inspired by thoughts of the fatwa slapped on author Salman Rushdie, the director takes us to the very first demonstration of the title game, one of a generation of virtual reality adventures that draw their operating energy from the human player's body through a "bioport" punched at the base of the spine. The game's designer, Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), soon learns she's been marked for death by the "reality underground," whose adepts believe that the concept of messing with the boundaries of reality for the sake of entertainment has gone quite far enough. Of course, Cronenberg is a master at messing with those very boundaries. If you're a technophobe, don't be scared off Cronenberg works in the realm of imagination and he has drafted a fine batch of actors and some delectably unnerving props to bring his latest intellectual fantasy to life. (April 14) Dance Me to My Song Catherine Breillat's "Romance," a French movie ostensibly about the dichotomy between a woman's emotional makeup and her untamed, unsatisfied sexual desires, is getting an enormous amount of attention the undeserved variety. It's a silly movie, about as deep as a puddle. The best film in recent memory about this feelings-and-desire thing seen from a woman's point of view is "Dance Me to My Song," by Australian director Rolf de Heer and his brave, riveting leading lady, Heather Rose, who co-wrote the script, based to some extent on her own life. Rose, who appeared in De Heer's off-kilter masterpiece "Bad Boy Bubby," is in her own way as unusual a physical specimen as "Romance's" Rocco Siffredi, a veteran porn star whose bigger-than-average endowment apparently follows directions better than many actors. Rose was born with cerebral palsy. Her extremely twisted body is confined to a wheelchair and she requires assistance to wash, dress, eat or do almost anything else most of us take for granted. She can't speak but comunicates via a computer with a voice synthesizer. In the film, Rose plays Julia, who lives on her own but relies on a caretaker named Madelaine (Joey Kennedy) for her basic survival. Youngish, guy-crazy Madelaine is a contemptuous, insensitive jerk. When Julia, on her own in her wheelchair, bumps into a hunky, quietly self-assured man named Eddie (John Brumpton), an unlikely friendship results. But Julia wants more than mere companionship. Her body is frightening to look at, yet there's never the slightest doubt that Rose would beat most of the competition in an Inner Beauty pageant. If part of why you go to the movies is to see things you've never seen before and think about stuff you've rarely thought about, "Dance Me to My Song" will reward you. There is much humor and not an ounce of condescension in its approach. (April 28) The Deep End of the Ocean (Aussi profond que l'océan) Suspenseful and quietly ingenious in its examination of what happens to a happy American family when given good reason to be less happy, "The Deep End of the Ocean" is solidly scripted (from Jacqueline Mitchard's best-selling novel) and acted. It's 1988 in Madison, Wisconsin, where photographer Beth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and restaurateur Pat Cappadora (Treat Williams) are the parents of firstborn Vincent, 3-year-old Ben and newborn daughter Kerry. Beth drives to Chicago with her brood to attend her 15th high school reunion. During registration in a crowded hotel lobby, Ben vanishes. Despite the best efforts of the police, including sympathetic officer Candy Bliss (Whoopi Goldberg), Ben isn't found. The Cappadora family dynamics are altered in profound ways. Nearly a decade goes by. Then something remarkable happens. Pfeiffer is splendid as a woman trying to cope with unresolved loss while continuing to live in the present, but it's the child actors who impress most. Except for a forced scene of triumphant ethnicity in a restaurant, every sequence captures something true to life and touching about how people who love each other are trapped in their own personalities or cut off from expressing what's at the crux of their fears. Precious few American films radiate this much intelligence in the service of fairly earned emotion. (May 5) True Crime (Jugé Coupable) Clint Eastwood's latest urban drama as star and director is mighty uneven, but the good parts are so good they're worth the price of admission. These mostly entail crusty banter between Oakland Tribune reporter Steve "Ev" Everett (Eastwood) and his editor, Alan Mann (James Woods), plus the scenes involving Isaiah Washington as Frank Beechum, a born-again Christian due to die by lethal injection at one minute past midnight for a murder he says he didn't commit. Ev is a womanizing, semi-reformed alcoholic whose gut tells him Beechum really is innocent. Can Ev put his finger on something the courts missed, even as he carries on with another man's wife while trying to be an adequate spouse to his own wife and a dad to their cute little daughter who simply must visit the zoo on the same crowded day Ev is trying to get to the bottom of a capitol crime? The approach may be hackneyed, but the suspense is genuine. (April 21) Cannes in Paris Hemingway taught us that Paris is a moveable feast. It's perhaps less well known that Cannes is a portable snack. From May 26 through June 1, a broad helping of the films shown in the Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) segment of the Cannes Film Festival are available to the paying general public at the Forum des Images (formerly Vidéothèque de Paris). |
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