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Into
the Unknown THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU: Written and directed by Wes Anderson. Co-written by Noah Baumbach. Produced by Wes Anderson, Barry Mendel, Scott Rudin. Executive producer, Rudd Simmons. Cinematographer, Robert Yeoman. Editor, David Moritz. Production design, Mark Friedberg. Costume design, Milena Canonera. Music, Mark Mothersbaugh. Music supervisor, Randall Poster. Animation, Henry Selick. Starring Bill Murray. With Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Noah Taylor, Bud Cort, Pelé dos Santos and Seymour Cassel. Touchstone Pictures, 2004. R. 118 minutes.
A weird title and stars such as Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and a fabulous Cate Blanchett may bring folks to the theater, but this hodge-podge of a movie probably won't make even aficionados happy. Why the film doesn't work is complicated, but the marine setting doesn't help. It's as if director Wes Anderson imagined the movie as some kind of ocean creature. Should it be a Crayon Pony Fish, an outlandish but colorful fake designed by animator Henry Selick? How about the movie as an electric jellyfish with glowing globular patterns? Or should the movie be pure hokum, like the 80-foot Jaguar Shark? As metaphor, Selick's ocean creatures made me feel I was watching the fake fish in a doctor's waiting-room aquarium. Anderson's film is as blatantly phony as the light-colored, critter killer shark with black spots and a mean disposition, which ate Steve Zissou's (Murray) former partner and set the whole plot in motion. More baloney than fish, this hybrid Life Aquatic is at once a satirical send-up of a marginal television underwater adventure show and a melodrama about the host's own dark-edged, mid-life crisis. I can't recall a single sequence in which the antagonistic thematic elements actually come together. By the time the hero springs into action and takes on the modern-day pirates, I'd lost interest in the episodic plot. The film is strangely edited — choppy, disjointed. Curiously, the camera pauses a long time on irrelevant scenes such as a character talking on the telephone, which neither creates conflict nor moves the story along. This holding-the-take flaw prompts me to suggest the crew and actors probably should not actually work if they are drunk or stoned. Murray may only pretend to be stoned, but it seemed all of them resided in an altered universe not accessible to the audience. According to the press notes, Anderson thought he was making an adventure genre film. He said he'd been thinking about this film for 14 years. Hmm. Then he and his writing pal, Noah Baumbach, met at a New York restaurant, Bar Pitti, every day and fleshed out the screenplay. Oh. I wasn't a fan of Anderson's first film, Bottle Rocket, 1996. Besides being too freakin' adolescent for my taste, the film was mean-spirited. By Rushmore, Anderson had found his way to tell offbeat, ironic stories about curious characters while entertaining the audience. The Royal Tennenbaums was even better. The characters were weird, but their psychodrama stayed within the family. The Tennenbaums were spectacularly more idiosyncratic than your average mom, dad, bub and sis unit, but Anderson's movie was about how they worked — or didn't work — as a familial group. I loved it. Anderson probably intended the underwater explorers and crew of Zissou's ship to seem like a family, but the effort fails. Murray gives his usual deadpan performance here, but I looked in vain for the understated heart of Steve Zissou. Such a self-absorbed character is hard to like. Ned Plimpton (Wilson), is Steve's son, who wanted a look at his dad but stays to become part of Team Zissou. In one of Wilson's first non-comic roles, he is paired him with Cate Blanchett as Jane, a smart, pregnant journalist bent on interviewing Zissou and returning to sanity. Jane and Ned are the only warm-blooded, non-cartoon characters onboard the Belafonte. Other characters include Klaus Daimler (Willem Dafoe), an engineer, who needs attention and praise from Zissou. Eleanor (Anjelica Huston) is Zissou's wife, who has brains, money and the opportunity to get away from the Belafonte, which she exercises early in the film. Bill Ubell (Bud Cort) is the solid, bond-company stooge kidnapped by pirates. Cort puts heart into this small role. Rival oceanographer Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) is Zissou's nemesis. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is now playing at Cinemark and Cinema World. I look forward to Anderson's next movie. This one is a dud.
Deadpan
Walking* NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: Written and directed by Jared Hess. Co-written by Jerusha Hess. Produced by Jermy Coon, Chris Wyatt, Sean C. Covel. Executive producer, Jory Weitz. Cinematography, Munn Powell. Production design, Cory Lorenzen. Editor, Jeremy Coon. Music, John Swihart. Starring Jon Heder, with Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Efren Ramirex, Tina Majoino and Diedrich Bader. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2004. PG. 86 minutes. A sleeper, Napoleon Dynamite has been on local movie screens since July 23. Allowed to find its legs and grow a word-to-mouth audience, the little film that could, did. It finished the year with a worldwide, cumulative box office take of nearly $45 million and was released on DVD December 21. I finally caught the film in its final round of theatrical release at Movies 12. I wanted to understand why all the cool twenty- and thirty-year olds in my extended family were urging me to see it.
Created by 26-year-old, writer and director Jared Hess and his 23-year-old co-writer and wife, Jerusha, both former film students at Brigham Young University, Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) is everybody's secret high-school nerd identity. No matter how smart, rich, hip or talented we become, the inner Napoleon reminds us of a time when we didn't know how much we didn't know and thought we knew everything. Never a smart-ass, Napoleon possesses a profoundly unselfconscious confidence that fuels his every interaction, even those in which he is being physically bashed about. He casually tosses out wholly outrageous white lies when the conversation calls for it, such as touting his deadly Ninja numchuk skills and his immodest expertise in wolverine hunting. Napoleon lives in a small town in Idaho, similar to Preston, Idaho, where film director Hess grew up. Napoleon and his 31 year-old brother, Kip (Aaron Ruell), who is a strange duck, live with their grandmother. After she is injured in a motorcycle accident, Uncle Rico (Jon Gries), comes to take care of the boys. Now Napoleon's worst fears are realized: He's not only bullied at school but also at home. Rico is a guy who has never found himself, a lost soul whose life effectively stopped when he got out of high school. He lives out of his van, selling plastic storage containers and breast enhancers. He believes in time-travel and other woo-woo (read: crank) ideas. Napoleon makes friends with a new boy in school, Pedro (Efren Ramirez), and admires Deb (Tina Majorino), who seems to like him back, so the three of them pal around together. Pedro hardly has a word to say, but girls like him. Deb is dying for high school to be over so she can get out of town. Meantime, she peddles hand-crafted, boondoggle key rings she made and practices photography by taking glamor shots of Rico. Deb is totally lovable. Like all teen movies I've seen, I'm suspicious of Napoleon Dynamite's improbable, happy ending. While his actions are congruent with his character, Napoleon might not bring down the house with the dance form he's practiced in front of the mirror at home. But he would stand up for his friend, Pedro. And that's the kind of action that counts, even for a high school geek. For at least one more week, Napoleon Dynamite is playing at Movies 12. Be there or be square. *P.S. I stole the great headline from Michael Atkinson's review of the film in the Village Voice.
OPENING
OR RETURNING: Coach Carter: Based on a true story. Samuel L. Jackson stars as a basketball coach in a Richmond, CA high school. His tough-love ethic requires players to keep up their grades and dress right. Directed by Thomas Carter (Save the Last Dance). Sneak at 7:30 pm on 01/08 at Cinemark. Human Amphibian: Genadii Kazanskii's 1961 film about an idealistic scientist who believes living in the ocean is the cure for all social and economic woes. He creates the first human amphibian creature, his own child. At 7 pm on 01/11 in 115 Pacific, UO campus. In Russian with English subtitles. Free. I Heart Huckabees: Delirious, laugh-out-loud comedy from David O. Russell (Three Kings, Flirting with Disaster) stars Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts and Jude Law. Even funnier on second viewing, this is one of 2004's top films. Very highest recommendations. R. Movies 12. Online archives. Rabbit-Proof Fence: Based on a true story. Three young Australian Aboriginal girls taken from their families escape white control in 1931 and run home 1,200 miles, evading pursuit. Phillip Noyce directs. Stars Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury , Laura Monaghan, David Gulpilil and Kenneth Branagh. It's a true walkabout with beautiful performances, especially by Sampi, empathic direction, great music by Peter Gabriel, and dramatic cinematography by Christopher Doyle. Highest recommendations. PG. Doors open at 6 pm on 01/08 Lorane Grange Hall #54 in Lorane. OR. $7 adult, $5 children donation includes refreshments and a 25-minute documentary narrated by Rod Serling: "The Role of Women in the Movies." Online archives. White Noise: Stars Michael Keaton as an architect who thinks his dead wife (Chandra West) is talking to him through electronic devices in their home. Geoffrey Sax directs this suspenseful thriller, which also stars Deborah Kara Unger and Ian McNeice. PG-13. Cinemark. Films open the Friday following EW publication date unless otherwise noted. See archived reviews at www.eugeneweekly.com
CONTINUING: After the Sunset: Just one more heist and he'll retire, master thief Pierce Brosnan promises his girlfriend (Salma Hayek). But a pesky FBI agent (Woody Harrelson) comes to his island paradise. Bret Ratner directs; also stars the great Don Cheadle. R. Movies 12. Aviator, The: Martin Scorsese's 169-minute film about lover, aviation pioneer and eccentric billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes, with Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Alan Alda, Frances Conroy and Ian Holm. DiCaprio is brilliant in the role, and Scorsese makes the film his own. One of the best films of the year. Very highest recommendations. PG-13. Cinemark. Cinema World. Online archives. Blade: Trinity: Vampire hunter Blade (Wesley Snipes) is back. Meanwhile, vampire leaders are bringing back the rejuvenated Dracula, their progenitor, who's now called Drake (Dominic Purcell). Yikes! Written and directed by David Goyer and based on the Marvel Comics character, the film also stars Kris Kristofferson, Ryan Reynolds, Jessica Biel, Parker Posey and Natasha Lyonne. R. Cinemark. Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason: Lackluster Bridget Jones sequel stars Renee Zellwegger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant again. Directed by Beeban Kidron, romantic comedy also stars Jacinda Barrett, Jemma Jones and Jim Broadbent. R. Movies 12. Online archives. Closer: Director Mike Nichols (Angels in America) looks at the relationships of four strangers, played by Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. Outstanding performances by all four make this a film not to be missed. Shows the anger, resentment and folly that result from such high-voltage matters as fidelity, sexuality and relationship. Ignore the negatives and see it. Very highest recommendations. One of 2004's top movies. R. Cinemark. Online archives. Darkness: Fright-filled horror movie written and directed by Jaume Balagueró, it's about a family that moves into a haunted house where horrible things happened. Stars Anna Paquin, with Lena Olin, Iain Glen and Giancarlo Giannini. Depite mild rating, film is reported to be nightmare-material. PG-13. Cinemark. Fat Albert: Bill Cosby character debuts in a live-action and animated film based on Cosby's stand-up routines about growing up in Philly. Directed by Joel Zwick. PG. Cinemark. Finding Neverland: Johnny Depp stars as British playwright J.M. Barrie, based on Allan Knee's play, The Man Who Was Peter Pan. Directed by Marc Foster, it also stars Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell and Dustin Hoffman. Winslet and Depp's performances are radiant, but the real star of the show is 12 year-old Freddie Highmore, playing the actual child, Peter Llewelyn Davies, who inspired Barrie's play. The picture is heartbreaking, gorgeous and probably too complicated for young children. PG. Cinema World. Online archives. Flight of the Phoenix: Using Robert Aldrich's 1965 adventure film as his base, John Moore updates the main story, in which crash survivors in the vast, remote Gobi Desert attempt to put their fractured plane together and fly out. Stars include Giovanni Ribisi, Dennis Quaid and Jacob Vargas. PG-13. Cinemark. Forgotten, The: Julianne Moore is a grieving parent. She learns from her psychiatrist (Gary Sinese) and others that her 8-year-old son never existed. Directed by Joseph Ruben, the film also stars Dominic West, Alfre Woodard, Linus Roache, Anthony Edwards. PG-13. Movies 12. Garden State: Zach Braff wrote, directed and stars in this funny, resonant romantic comedy, which co-stars Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm. Braff and Portman help the film get to a truth about what it is to be 20-something in the early years of the 21st century. Highest recommendations. R. Movies 12. Online Archives. Incredibles, The: Writer, director Brad Bird and Pixar Animation Studios create an action-adventure story set in suburbia where a former top crime fighter, Mr. Incredible, gets the call to jump back into actions. PG. Cinemark. Online archives. Kinsey: Bill Condon's excellent film about human sexual researcher Alfred Kinsey stars Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Peter Sarsgaard. Frank, open-hearted and genuinely humorous, this is a must-see movie. An entertaining and enlightening antidote to the bedroom politics of the religious right and one of 2004's best, the film gets my highest recommendations. R. Bijou. Online archives. Ladder 49: Stars John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix) as Baltimore firemen. PG. Movies 12. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The New York Times calls the Lemony Snicket books "mordantly funny," but the stories of the misadventures of three orphans who fall into the hands of an evil count are popular with children and adults. Jim Carrey plays said count, three game kids bedevil him, and Meryl Streep, Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly, Luis Guzmán, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Adams and Catherine O'Hara help. Directed by Brad Silberling and written by Robert Gordon. PG. Cinema World. Cinemark. Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Wes Anderson's new ensemble comedy stars Bill Murry as a famed underwater adventure filmmaker who's run into some big waves and is going under. Co-stars Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Michael Gambon and Willem Dafoe. R. Cinema World. Cinemark. See review this issue. Meet the Fockers: Jay Roach follows Meet the Parents (2000) with Ben Stiller's bride and in-laws to-be Teri Polo, Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner meeting his rather eccentric parents, Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand. Culture clash writ small. PG-13. Cinemark. Cinema World. Napoleon Dynamite: Jared Hess' indie comedy stars Jon Heder as a high schooler, who lives in Idaho with his grandmother. The Village Voice says, "the film is an epic, magisterially observed pastiche on all-American geekhood, flooring the competition with a petulant shove." PG. Movies 12. See review this issue. National Treasure: Directed by Jon Turteltub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, adventure stars Nicolas Cage searching for treasure George Washington hid during the Revolutionary War. Sean Bean plays his British rival who's anxious to score the treasure first. PG. Cinemark. Ocean's Twelve: Director Steven Soderbergh returns with the gang: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts and newby Catherine Zeta-Jones. A recent group interview in Premiere makes reveals they had a blast making this sequel. Highly recommended for its unabashedly confident entertainment value. PG-13. Cinemark. Online archives. Phantom of the Opera, The: The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is brought to the screen by Joel Schumacher. It stars Emmy Rossum, Gerard Butler and Patrick Wilson. Unfortunately, under Schumacher's insipid direction, kitsch dominates. If you already love the work, you may enjoy the film, but the too-sweet sentimentality is too much for me. PG-13. Cinemark. Cinema World. Online archives. Polar Express, The: Robert Zemeckis directs a wholly CG animation adventure, starring Tom Hanks in multiple roles in this adaptation of children's book by Chris Van Allsburg. Called "performance capture," the technique uses actors' live-action performances to drive the emotions and movements of the digital characters. G. Cinemark. Cinema World. Ray: Jamie Foxx plays late, great Ray Charles in this musical, biographical drama, directed by Taylor Hackford. Co-stars Kerry Washington, Regina King, Clifton Powell, Harry Lennix, Terrence Dashon Howard, Richard Schiff, Aunjanue Ellis and Sharon Warren. Outstanding performance by Foxx. One of the year's finest films. PG-13. Movies 12. Online archives. Shall We Dance: American remake of the sublime Japanese film of the same title. Sorry to report it, but Jennifer Lopez plays the dance teacher and Richard Gere the shy man who learns to dance. See the original to compare to this all-Hollywood effort. PG-13. Movies 12. Shark Tale: In this computer-animated feature, a lovable tropical fish with the voice of Will Smith takes on the underwater Mafia when he assumes responsibility for killing the godfather of the Great White Sharks. Other voices include those of Jack Black, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie and Martin Scorsese; Eric Bergeron. Directed by Vicky Jenson. PG. Movies 12. Sideways: Fresh social comedy by Alexander Payne follows two guys on a bachelor week in California wine country. Great performances by Paul Giamatti (American Splendor) and Thomas Haden Church ("Wings") sweetens the tale, as do Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh. One of the best films of the year. Don't miss. R. Bijou. Online archives. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: Starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, this digital special effects sci-fi action film was shot without sets and locations. Brainchild: writer/director Kerry Conran in collaboration with producer Jon Avnet. Other stars include Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Gambon and Bai Ling. PG. Movies 12. Online archives. Spanglish: James L. Brooks's comedy/drama stars Adam Sandler, Tea Leoni, Anne Bancroft and Paz Vega. A non-English speaking woman goes to work for an upscale LA family. PG-13. Cinemark. Cinema World. SpongeBob SquarePants: Animated feature starring one of Nickelodeon's most absorbing characters. Voices by Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson and others. PG. Cinemark. Without a Paddle: High-speed comedy adventure stars Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard as clueless adventurers who go into the Oregon wilderness in search of lost treasure. PG-13. Movies 12.
MOVIE
THEATERS Bijou
Art Cinemas Regal
Cinemas Cinemark
Theaters
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