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Film Clips
DECEMBER 22, 1997:
 AMISTAD. Sure, the story is important, but the movie's
not. Though Steven Spielberg capably navigates the complex 19th-century
politics that were preventing abolition, he fails to shape them
into an effective drama. The tale's catalyst--a black mutiny aboard
a slave ship on its way across the Atlantic--is powerfully, artfully
rendered in scattered, flashback sequences. The rest of the movie,
however, turns into a long, talky yawner full of courtroom scenes
and endless exposition. And unlike Schindler's List, there's
no central character to care about: Matthew McConaughy's quickly
becomes irrelevant, Morgan Freeman's has little to do, and even
Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the African who led the revolt, is reduced
to a banal noble-savage role. (Anthony Hopkins, playing John Quincy
Adams, shows up just long enough to give a terrific speech--which
John Williams manages to ruin with his intrusive, uninspired score.)
Amistad vividly re-imagines history, but there's no heart;
it's just a big-budget history lesson. --Woodruff
HOME ALONE 3. Sometimes, when awakened in the middle of
the night, as if by an unpleasant dream, even though no dream
is remembered, we will stare upwards, unable to move or to reach
for the light or to make a sound, in spite of the darkness and
the sense that something which is not frightening has in some
way scared us. If the bed is otherwise empty, the house devoid
of company, then there's no one to turn to for solace, no one
to whom we can say, "I don't know what it is; nor could I
explain it if I did know. I only know that what I am was felt
to be in jeopardy, or perhaps beyond that, unredeemable, irretrievable,
even undone and never made." On nights such as these, when
even our souls threaten to abandon us, we can truly, and with
deepest sensibility, say that we are Home Alone. So take
the kids because this is a slam-bang adventure where a single,
scrappy lad with Rube Goldberg's inventiveness and Errol Flynn's
panache manages to repeatedly thwart, humiliate, and thrash the
kookiest gang of international criminals this side of the IRA!!!
--DiGiovanna
FOR RICHER OR POORER. A complete lack of effort marks this
"film." The plot, about an obnoxious land developer
and his stereotypical rich-bitch shopaholic wife, each redeemed
by spending a couple of weeks with an Amish family, is almost
too embarrassing to recount. Every element of this entertainment
alternative is so trite that I can only imagine it was written
by some kind of scriptwriting computer program which analyzed
all of the mediocre comedies of the last 10 years and reduced
them to their most banal moments. The only thing that stands out
is Kirstie Alley's incredibly grating performance, which almost
makes Tim Allen look good by comparison. Almost. While I was watching
this, two audience members actually fell asleep, and a third left
to rent a Pauly Shore film. --DiGiovanna
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