Friday, 2 February 2001

WEEKEND PREVIEW

Quite a weekend.

Generally, August is like skiing down the side of a mountain with the snow melting out from under you as you get closer to the bottom. Not this year. New Line's traditional summer slumber, interrupted only for giant sequels with spies who shag, is ending with a bang this year, with The Cell poised to be a major success for the company. The Original Kings of Comedy is probably the best made comedy concert film ever, with Spike Lee adding great touches to what is normally a by-the-book affair. And the comics are pretty funny, too. Godzilla 2000 is…well, it's exactly what it is. I don't really do straight reviews for roughcut.com, but because of circumstance (Susannah Breslin's car was crushed by a giant lizard on the way to the screening…don't worry, she's okay.), I did just that. So, you can read my second official roughcut.com review (the first was for the porn documentary Exhausted, which I did as an adjunct to Boogie Nights coverage) by clicking here. That's a three-for-three weekend of wide releases, my friends. That's a lot better than last weekend's flaccid trio of The Replacements, Autumn in New York and Bless the Child.

The thing that's fascinating to me about this weekend is that people who love movies of all shapes and sizes will have a field day and people who have a list of what they don't like will have to be very, very careful. All three wide releases this weekend come with my recommendation and my warning. If you don't like Godzilla or movies that make you feel creepy or jokes about being Black or White in America…choose wisely. If you embrace all three things, plan on going to the multiplex and sneaking from theater to theater all day Saturday or Sunday. You have a lot of work to do.

Box Office Extra will be right here at noon e.s.t. today.

The piece on Almost Famous will be on Monday.

THE GOOD: The Cell is good. Why "just" good? Well, things even out. The film is a visual sensation, creating a macabre house of hallucinatory horrors that is unlike any movie you've ever seen. Well, mostly. Unfortunately, it does bring to mind Se7en, perhaps making it seem less original than it is. And Tarsem, the director who likes to go by one name, is so fond of some of the images in his mind that we've already seen them in some of his music videos (which is, presumably, where David Fincher got some ideas for some parts of Se7en …small world, huh?). All that said, the film is still a remarkable visual production that you can almost taste as the light of the projector passes you on the way to the screen.

Of course, the story ain't worth a tinker's damn. The ideas that went into the story are fascinating. And clearly, someone had some great ideas or there wouldn't be so many interesting story threads sitting around on the floor at the end, waiting to be tied up by someone….anyone! Without giving up any spoilers, was it a coincidence that Vince Vaughn and Vincent D'Onofrio could be family members and one is the good guy and the other is the bad guy in this movie? Probably not. Didn't go anywhere. Is there a reason why the girl that the clock is counting down for throughout the movie is allowed no personality whatsoever? Why is Jennifer Lopez really so selfless in her efforts? What was the meaning and real root of D'Onofrio's character's psychosis….besides the incredibly simplistic one given. (It's not that I don't think that extreme child abuse can make someone lose their mind, it's that the steps towards specific manifestations, particularly in the dreams, aren't really addressed in the movie.) And, of course, the ultimate cop movie goof of why no one noticed the key clue early in the film WHEN THE CAMERA WAS LINGERING ON IT FOR 3 SECONDS IN CLOSE-UP.

Okay. So I don't think this is as complex as, say, Kiss the Girls. It's not even in the same arena as The Silence of the Lambs or Se7en or even Neil Jordan's flawed but occasionally amazing In Dreams...certainly not in the same city as Jordan's film about a child turned to his dark side, The Butcher Boy. And my head was pounding throughout the film with the realization that it would have been even more effective had someone been able to convince Tarsem to leave the grand camera moves and images for the dreams only and to not overshoot every walking-n-talking scene in the "real" world.

But The Cell is still worth your time and you will still take a lot away from this movie on the visuals alone. Jeff Wells of Reel.com made a salient point, even if it got a little lost in his other points about the movie. The Cell is a trip movie. It is a simplistic variation on Terry Gilliam's grossly underrated Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That movie asked you to deal with a narrative and take the drug trip at the same time. Most people refused. All The Cell asks you to do is to sit back, buckle up and let the movie wash over you like the ocean--occasionally violent, but always salty.

Forget about the fact that all this dream stuff, which dominates the vast majority of the movie, has almost nothing to do with cracking the police case that it supposedly is about. Forget that the sense of it being a fable is bowdlerized by the fact that almost none of the character action is fully motivated. Forget that poor Dylan Baker might have been called Dr. Exposition with the load of dialogue that was nothing but exposition from the start of the film until the end. Like Godzilla 2000, this movie is not about rational movie analysis. It's about the rollercoaster. The Cell makes people feel things…strong things. It speaks to the subconscious. It speaks to the stoned. And it's going to speak loudly to the box office.

THE BAD LANGUAGE: Okay. The Original Kings of Comedy is not for you if you are sensitive to four-letter words. It's also not for you if you accuse black Americans of being hypersensitive but freak out when your ethnicity is made fun of in any way by anybody other than your best friend who shares your skin tone and religious beliefs.

But if you can get over those two issues, this movie is a lot of fun. Shot by Spike Lee, the film has a very joyous energy, in which the audience is clearly a part of the experience of the movie. Apparently, he shot it digitally, so it will look quite different on video than it will on celluloid at a theater. But it looks good. And it has the rawness that a real live concert has. But Lee, through off-stage interviews and time spent with the 4 Kings in their down time, also gives you a sense of each comedians personality and personal reality. I feel like I really do know these guys now. And that's something special in a live comedy film.

Steve Harvey is the emcee and seems to be the emcee in life as well. Bernie Mac is the big, rough, pain-in-the-a** who tells it exactly how it is, no matter what or who is in front of him. Cedric the Entertainer is the shy, precise anal guy who started telling jokes under his breath and realized that he was making everyone laugh with every sly thought. And D.L. Hughley is the motor-mouth who has something to say about everything. You know that every one of these guys wants to be and thinks he is the funniest guy at the table. But there is a blending that fits just right, so no one breaks the line that they all walk together.

The one thing that got a little tiresome for me was that all four men opened their sets with what it's like to be black and what it's like not to be white. After a while, funny though it was, it felt like they were beating the same dog over and over again. Thing is, I didn't care whether they were black or white…or for that matter, whether I was black or white…they were funny and I was laughing at the same things we all laugh at, human foible.

"Steal, Remember & Criticize"