Friday, 2 February 2001

WEEKEND PREVIEW

Box Office Extra returns this week. Look for it here after noon, e.s.t. (News By The Numbers also returns this weekend in its normal format.)

The big dog this weekend is Gladiator. How will it hunt? We shall see.

The alternative programming is by Sony. Kim Basinger stars in I Dreamed of Africa. ("Welcome to MovieFone. Showtimes are...") I was really hoping that this would be a good movie, based on the trailer shown at ShoWest. There hasn't been a good, family-oriented Africa movie in a long while and there's no reason why there shouldn't be one. Except word-of-mouth seems to suggest that I Dreamed of Africa is a reason why there shouldn't be one. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment directly. But it will be fascinating to stand in front of box office lines at the multiplexes and see women try to convince their men to see I Dreamed of Africa when the next showing of Gladiator is sold out.

Also opening are Human Traffic, winner of the Bermuda International Film Festival. Also, Up At The Villa stars Sean Penn and is being released with all the hoopla of an ingrown toenail. What's up with that? Plus, Timecode is out there.

And to answer a question from one reader, as far as Warner Bros. can tell me, there is no set schedule on the ongoing roadshow of the reprint of The Exorcist. Sorry. I'll keep trying to get an answer, but right now, there doesn't seem to be one.

And after returning to L.A. to three consecutive nights of hideous art films from filmmakers I expected a lot more from, this should be a pretty incredible movie weekend for me. Of course, I can't tell you about it now. But on Monday, my lips should unseal. See you then.

Meanwhile, since Gladiator is THE story of this weekend, it gets the full G,B&E treatment.

THE GOOD: Ridley Scott is one of the greatest visual directors in the history of cinema. And there hasn't been a real Roman epic in a long, long time. Plus, you have Russell Crowe. Crowe is not only a great actor, but it seems that every gay man and straight woman I run into these days can't wait to ogle him in a skirt for a couple of hours.

And Gladiator is a classically Hollywood idea. Yes, it is a rip-off of almost any chariot movie that comes to mind. There is a jealousy plot and a man-of-the-people plot. There is a really good guy and a really bad guy. There are great appearances by great actors near the end of their careers. The great Oliver Reed actually died during production.

And it is fun. The battle scenes are big and as brash as any you've seen in a few years. There are men in skirts and women in silken gowns. The ability of CG to recreate Rome is fairly remarkable. And though the TV spots emphasized it, there is nothing that hits home like when the camera pans up the side of the Coliseum and you realize that you've been seeing football or baseball or soccer in one of those things for years.

And Joaquin Phoenix, who seemed an odd choice to go toe-to-toe with Russell Crowe is incredible. All that psychosis he's brought to other roles finally grows up and this guy is smart and scary. When he does go over the top, you go with him and you get the feeling that he hasn't lost his footing, but that he's made a very real choice.

Richard Harris was also wonderful in his brief appearance.

The action in this movie is more than plentiful enough for any action fan. It is a party.

THE BAD: Gladiator is the first Ridley Scott movie that Tony Scott could have directed.

For all the effort and care to the action, this movie is a miserable failure when it comes to reaching the depth and passion that it seeks to reach. It aspires to combine the very intimate feel of battle and the very personal sense of fighting for one's freedom that was so powerful in Braveheart with the jealousy story that so often marks Roman epics. And it can't do it. It's too busy obsessing on Russell Crowe vs. Joaquin Phoenix to really ever let Crowe care about the masses. In fact, the movie is so narrowly -- and eventually, boringly -- focused on this personal battle that great supporting characters get lost, thrown off the narrative cart like so much meat for the lions.

Djimon Honsou's character, without giving too much away, is instrumental to the continuation of this story at one point. Yet, he fades into the background so quickly that he doesn't even become the Woody Strode of this movie. In Honsou's section with Crowe, with Crowe forced to play dumb for more than 20 minutes by the screenplay, Honsou starts to develop into a rich, complex character. Unlike the Romans, he has a spiritual philosophy and a distinctive view of the world. He is as much a potential partner as a guide. But though the filmmakers clearly wanted to make this a special character, they dump him in favor of more CG and eyebrow arching as they get to Rome.

Of course, I may have been a little distracted by the loud thud I heard sometime in the middle of the movie. I knew it wasn't meant to be on the audio track, though hearing anything during the film might be tough. But it was okay. After a moment, I realized that the thud was me, falling off the Connie Nielsen bandwagon.

And how can any film manage to waste...and I do mean waste...Derek Jacobi? I've never seen a bad performance by this actor, who I consider right up there with Olivier, Geilgud, O'Toole, Hopkins and other great U.K. actors. (That is actually too narrow a frame, but we do tend to keep those guys together in our minds, no?)

Richard Harris, though giving the film authority early on, was overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle of the movie. Another performance lost to the battle sequences that will drive the box office like a team of horses in front of a chariot.

And what of Ridley Scott's clear effort to create new forms of images. It didn't work for me. We've seen Steven Spielberg drop frames from a battle sequence. Stow that. We've seen quick cutting from tight close-ups before and you know what? It's hard to keep tabs on the action that way. All the cutting kills the very intimacy the style was aiming at. And the tinted frames...I just don't love getting smacked that hard in the face. Scott is too damned good to have to resort to the tricks that made Oliver Stone seem so stylistically desperate in Any Given Sunday.

"Ugly, Ads & Butts"