Friday, 9 July 1999

American Pie is the newcomer. Wild Wild West is the defending box office champion. What will happen? Well, for in-depth analysis of the numbers, check out Box Office Extra. But here's a little hint. For those of you salivating at a massive drop for Wild Wild West this weekend, the film's success during the week does not point to an unusually large drop. Also, keep in mind that WWW only did $27.7 million over the 3-day, so, unlike Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Mummy or Big Daddy, the height from which to fall isn't that great. As for American Pie, this movie is beginning to look like a runaway locomotive. Audiences simply love it. Critical opinions differ and people over 50 may not connect with it, but this is a better film than any one joke would lead you to believe, just as There's Something About Mary was more than the sum of its biggest joke.

Arlington Road is also opening this weekend. I am stunned and amazed that anyone is giving this film any credence at all. It is perhaps the most laughably bad major studio release of the year. (Simply Irresistible and The King & I didn't make me laugh. Actually, the scars on my wrists are almost healed now.) I'll be more specific below, but I think that the ad campaign, as overloaded with spoilers as it is, will draw a crowd. Not a huge one, but maybe as many people as Summer of Sam did last week. And that would be a travesty. I'm not a huge Summer of Sam fan, but it is miles ahead of Arlington Road.

Autumn Tale from Eric Rohmer opens this week in New York City only and expands out in the weeks to come. I had the privilege of seeing this film at the First Annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. When Roger & Co. booked the film, no distributor had picked it up for this country yet, despite the previous success of Rohmer films. October picked it up just days before the festival began. You see, this film has the audacity of being about (ta-dum!) adults with adult problems. And yet, at the same time, the film is as joyous and youthful and brimming over with hope and passion as any film about young people. At 34, I am still nearly a generation younger than the women and men of Autumn Tale and yet, I am thrilled to be reminded that the heart can still beat as strong at 50, even if your eyes are getting kind of iffy. A beautiful movie.

THE GOOD: Someone asked me in this week's chat who my favorite critics were. Right now, I can't find anyone who I enjoy reading as much as Andrew Sarris. When we agree, he finds angles that I hadn't thought about. When we disagree, he is clear and clever in making a case that makes me think. I should do as much in this column. This week, Sarris takes on Summer of Sam, American Pie, Wild Wild West and an art film called Late August, Early September. He hits every film pretty well on the nose, while maintaining his own very personal sensibility.

THE BAD: I've self-embargoed any talk about the Eyes Wide Shut screenings, but every time I try to get out, someone pulls me back in. Word comes to me that some of the journalists who have been chosen to see Eyes Wide Shut early are complaining that they are not allowed to bring a guest and have threatened to boycott the screening if that decision isn't changed. Pathetic. Could these people be any more filled with entitlement and self-indulgence?

Of course, I'm feeling a bit of an entitlement issue myself these days. I'll be teaming up with George Pennachio of KABC-TV for this weekend's "Movie Show" on KABC Radio here in Los Angeles, and we are only being given an hour instead of the three hours that Rod Lurie has had for the last five years. Nonetheless, we will plug along. The KABC server didn't work a couple of weekend's ago, but you can try to listen to us via Real Audio at www.kabc.com if you like at 1pET/10aPT/5pGMT.

THE UGLY: How did I dislike Arlington Road? Let me count the ways. But first, let me explain how much I like Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack, and how much I look forward to more work from Hope Davis. Then let me tell you that Hope Davis doesn't appear to have any real passion for Jeff Bridges, who plays her boyfriend in the film, and is pretty much used as window dressing throughout. But that's a step above what this film does to Joan Cusack, whose slightly uneven looks are used as a creepy, funny gag throughout the film. How many times does Mark Pellington leave her in a "look at the freak" lighting pattern for long enough that the audience might expect her to break out into an imitation of Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby. And that speaks to another problem. This film has more tones than a paint store. One minute, it's scary like Rosemary's Baby. Is he sane or is he insane? The next minute, it's an Oliver Stone movie filled with unstoppable conspiracies. Or, is it Children of the Corn, with Mason Gamble (formerly Dennis The Menace) a little too old to be riding his Big Wheel down hallways and screaming "REDRUM!"? Or perhaps it's The Player, with an FBI agent played so unconvincingly by Robert Gossett that I was waiting for a tampon joke. Or maybe it's The Vanishing, with Jeff Bridges in the Keifer Sutherland role, so obsessed with his dead wife that he can't be counted on to be rational now. Or could it be Police Squad as defined by the remarkably unrealistic recreation of Ruby Ridge, where the inevitability of people acting in ways they never would turned drama into comedy.

Or maybe I just didn't like seeing the brilliant Jeff Bridges giving a performance that never seems to allow his thyroid to relax for a second, sweating, eyes bulging and in an irrational fury throughout. Maybe it was Tim Robbins having so little to do that he essentially walks through, trying not to crack a smile when pushing the over-reaching dialogue through his teeth. But at least the ending, which I will not give away, makes absolutely no sense. To wit, how could anyone know that the circumstances that occur would come close to occurring the way they do? Certainly the director could not have known or he wouldn't have put so many road blocks ahead of the inevitable. (Come back and read this again if you sit through this monstrosity and it will make sense. Promise.) Is this film worse than The Thirteenth Floor? For me, yes. Because The Thirteenth Floor was never really anything more than an overgrown episode of The Outer Limits. This film had a really good idea and the chance to use current real-life drama to tell a great fictional story. Through the first act, I had hope. Through the second act, I lost hope. And through the third act, I laughed out loud as every guess I made at every cheesy choice that could have been made got made. Truly ugly.

PAGE TWO: "A Walk In The Woods, A Search For God & A Look At A New Whore"