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Film Clips
MARCH 9, 1998:
 CAUGHT UP. A wonderful surprise. I expected just another
black gangster flick, but Caught Up turned out to be an
exceedingly well-spun yarn that had far more in common with film
noir and twisty mysteries than Menace II Society. Bokeem
Woodbine stars as a tough, youngish ex-con who's determined to
go straight and build himself a respectable life. That proves
near impossible as the film keeps throwing strange, shady characters
in his path, including criminals, mean cops and a sultry psychic
played by the sexy Cynda Williams. The nothing-is-what-it-seems
plot convolutes continuously from there, but it's well-sustained
by a palpably surreal nighttime L.A. atmosphere, Bokeem's compelling
intelligence and director Darin Scott's terse screenplay. Scott,
who also wrote Tales From the Hood and Sprung, displays
great skill at lacing standard genres (including the African-American
morality tale) into a fresh-feeling whole; and though at times
Caught Up heads way over the top, the storytelling remains
solid. --Woodruff
DARK CITY. It's always dark in Dark City. So dark that
the working titles for this film were Dark Empire and Dark
World, so we can be assured of darkness. There are villains
who wear outfits left over from Hellraiser, with make-up
borrowed from Nosferatu, as they roam the back lot vacated
after the shooting of City of Lost Children. Interiors
from The Crow are peopled with characters out of Naked
City, and an evil doctor who seems to have borrowed everything
he owns from Terry Gilliam's prop closet. The story, dark as it
is, moves along at a decent clip, except towards the end when
the main characters get in the Boat of Expository Dialogue in
order to discover the secret of the Dark City, and just why it's
so damn dark there. A decent level of entertainment, though completely
devoid of the originality that would've given it punch, there
are still a few visual delights in this derivative sci-fi thriller.
And it's so dark. So very, very dark. --DiGiovanna
KISSING A FOOL. This low-budget comedy with cute-guy substitutes
David Schwimmer and Jason Lee is reasonably entertaining, reasonably
funny, and reasonably moving. Basically, sleaze-ball sportscaster
and cocksman Schwimmer finds love with the one woman (Mili Avital)
who his sensitive and loving best friend Jason Lee could truly
love, and she loves Schwimmer, but then realizes, no, she loves
Lee, but then there's trouble, because even though Lee set her
up with Schwimmer he did it because he loves her and couldn't
express his love but then Schwimmer convinces Lee to try and bed
Avital in order to test her love for Schwimmer but, quelle
surprise, the plan backfires and Avital and Lee fall in love
but then she finds out about the test and the love thing takes
a downturn but the whole thing is told in flashback from a wedding
so we know it all worked out for somebody but we don't know who.
But we guess really quickly. Still, not an entirely unfunny film,
if that's your romantic comedy bag. --DiGiovanna
KRIPPENDORF'S TRIBE. In Mr. Holland's Opus, Richard
Dreyfuss reaffirmed the heroism of teaching and won himself a
best-actor Oscar nomination in the process. Perhaps the good karma
was just too much for the guy, because in Krippendorf's Tribe
Dreyfuss plays a disorganized anthropologist who squanders his
grant money and then pretends he's discovered a unique new culture
in hopes of maintaining the cash flow. When colleagues demand
evidence, Dreyfuss and his three kids dress up in the Papua New
Guinea equivalent of blackface and film each other performing
crude (in more ways than one) rituals in their back yard. Wouldn't
you know it, further kooky comic hijinks ensue. There's a hint
of social satire here on the level of "See? We're the really
primitive ones," and Dreyfuss is somewhat sympathetic because,
sniff, he's a single parent. But the movie's one offensive joke
and sitcom-style wackiness get mighty painful mighty fast. That
Dreyfuss, Lily Tomlin (as a skeptical academic) and Jenna Elfman
(as an aggressively peppy love interest) try to reduce the agony
via self-mocking exuberance didn't stop me from praying for their
characters' swift and merciless demise. If there's one thing Krippendorf's
Tribe teaches us, it's that when all else fails, you can always
pick on the minorities who don't have access to movie theaters.
--Woodruff
MA VIE EN ROSE. Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink)
is an original little movie from Belgium about a 7-year-old boy
who's thoroughly convinced that he would rather be a girl. Ludovic's
(Georges Du Fresne) cross-dressing antics are received with tolerance
at first; but with time, parents school mates and neighbors learn
to hate the tyke for being different. Filmed in bright, splashy
colors, with a lot of ultra-femme dream sequences on the pink
planet of a Barbie-esque character named Pam, Ma Vie en Rose
has the sweet, harmless look of a store-bought birthday cake.
This stands in stark contrast to the gritty disintegration of
Ludovic's family, who find themselves buckling to peer pressure
in the community. Though adults in the family get to change and
grow, poor little Ludovic basically gets booted around through
the whole thing, which is kind of hard to watch. --Richter
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