Friday, January 23, 1998
Screenscene
FILM:
"Oscar and Lucinda"
Directed by Gillian Armstrong
Starring Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett
A period romance usually has three elements:
1. A wonderfully emotional story based on a great novel.
2. A beautiful setting filled with lush landscapes and swelling
orchestra music.
3. A convincing chemistry between the two lovers.
But "Oscar and Lucinda" goes beyond this, giving the audience a
dreamy love story with enough twists and oddities to make it stand
out from "Sense and Sensibility," "The Age of Innocence" and others
in the genre.
Based on the acclaimed novel by Peter Carey, the film is set in
Victorian society where two misfits are drawn together by their
common love of danger and chance.
Oscar (Fiennes) is a nervous English clergyman whose obsessive
gambling and subsequent guilt leads him to find penitence by doing
missionary work in Australia. There he meets the rebellious Lucinda
(Blanchett), a wealthy glass factory owner who compulsively gambles
to assert her independence.
But destiny loves to screw with people’s heads and lives.
Oscar’s insecurity blinds him to Lucinda’s obvious affection for
him. He believes that she is in love with another. So in a wildly
exaggerated attempt to prove his worth to her, Oscar bets that he
can transport a delicate glass church to a dangerous and remote
area of Australia as a gift to the man he assumes is Lucinda’s
beloved. The wager becomes the defining moment for the two as the
fate of the glass church comes to determine the characters’
destinies.
For the unique story to remain realistic and heartbreaking, the
two leads must pull off their oddball characters convincingly.
Fiennes is gently touching as the earnest and shy Oscar, a much
more appealing character than those he has portrayed in previous
films ("Schindler’s List" and "The English Patient"). Newcomer
Blanchett is also radiant as the fun-loving and charming Lucinda,
making it easy to understand why Oscar is so enraptured by her
character.
Unfortunately this tiny gem of a film hasn’t received much media
attention. But it definitely should not be missed. Reverently
directed by Australian filmmaker Armstrong ("Little Women"), the
film is a bittersweet ode to the fractured oddballs out there who
are still looking for their Oscar or Lucinda.
Aimee Phan
Grade: A+
"Illtown"
Directed by Nick Gomez
Starring Michael Rapaport and Lili Taylor
It’s a shame that hardly anyone saw "The Laws of Gravity," the
crackerjack debut film of director Gomez. The way his camera
follows a group of Brooklyn bad-asses is profane cinematic realism
– so engaging is his declarative style that we only blink when he
does. "Gravity" surely marked Gomez as a major new voice.
It’s a bigger shame that audiences will likely be introduced to
Gomez’s talents through his latest effort "Illtown," a morbid drugs
‘n’ thugs odyssey that suffers from, ironically, too much effort.
There’s no question that there are serious ailments in this film,
all of which account for the its unfocused sense of direction.
Like in his previous films, Gomez is again preoccupied with the
presence of fraternal love in a harsh terrain that would seem more
productive, and less violent, without it. In fact, the word "Love"
is written on every baggie of heroin sold in "Illtown." Death and
love become synonymous because, on a heroin high, pleasure
encompasses everything and distinguishes nothing.
If you think that’s English-major hogwash, you have no idea what
your in for. A drug dealer named Dante (Rapaport) goes through his
own inferno of guilt, sorrow and rage. And in this "Divine Comedy"
descent, Dante’s haunted by a former business partner and friend, a
fallen angel of sorts aptly named Gabriel (Adam Trese).
Released from prison, Gabriel now has a score to settle with
Dante: a few years ago Dante sold him out. Gabriel starts passing
out some deadly smack under Dante’s logo of "Love." Dante gets in
trouble, Gabriel keeps asking for trouble, but the movie insists
that all this hurting is done out of love – or more accurately,
"the love that never dies."
Something has died, though, in Gomez. With its guns and rude
ruffians swaggering about, "Illtown" has the same grittiness that
made "Gravity" so compelling. But now that Gomez has a bit more
money and is too aware of his talents, each grit in "Illtown" is
too polished and well placed.
The manipulation doesn’t end there: with the movie’s
kaleidoscope of flashbacks, fever dreams and God knows what,
there’s so much overwrought yo-yoing that we know Gomez is out to
play games. Yes, he wants us to experience his movie the way one
has experienced drugs. But the real thing is probably much more
rewarding.
Sacrificing the good heart on his sleeve for the tricks beneath
it, Gomez has created a mish-mash that is vexing at every turn. His
payback’s-a-bitch drug world is so basic in story that all the
stylistic ballyhooing becomes embarrassingly highfalutin. The
movie’s like meeting a floating, four-eyed soothsayer on LSD, with
a tiara on her head and doves flying around her, and then having to
listen to her summarize her favorite episode of "Miami Vice."
She’ll grab your attention, but soon you’ll discover that time’s
wasting, it’s all preposterous and she’s a sham.
Tommy Nguyen
Grade: C-
"Phantoms"
Directed by Joe Chappelle
Starring Peter O’Toole, Ben Affleck, Rose McGowan and Liev
Schreiber
Horror movies have come back in a big way ever since the hit
"Scream," and now studios are eager to release as many films as
possible that can scare the crap out of people.
The next entry into this frightfest is "Phantoms," a movie
distinguished by its star, Oscar-nominated veteran O’Toole, and
screenwriter, popular suspense writer Dean Koontz, who also wrote
the original best-selling novel.
The story is simple enough: Two sisters (McGowan and Joanna
Going) return to a mountain resort community to find that all 700
residents are dead.
The extremely efficient killer turns out to be a gross,
shapeless supernatural demon called "The Ancient Enemy" who has
lived underground for centuries. He’s suddenly decided to come out
and have some fun stalking the town. The sisters soon catch up with
three other survivors, a dedicated town sheriff (Affleck), his
jealous and smarmy deputy (Schreiber) and a tabloid journalist
(O’Toole) who holds the only clues on how to contain this big bad
beast.
One of the movie’s running gimmicks is its fondness for the
delayed scare tactic. The movie builds up to an intense moment
complete with foreboding music and close-ups of the characters’
worried faces. Then the audience is led to believe it’s a false
alarm, everything’s all right and they can relax now. But just as
the audience takes their hands off their eyes, something god-awful,
like a severed head, falls out from nowhere, successfully making
everyone pee their pants with fright.
It’s really quite creative and effective. The first five times.
But then the gimmick makes the movie becomes so predictable that
the audience will soon catch on and be prepared for the next 30
times they do this.
Despite the film’s predictable plot and shallow
characterizations, the actors are convincing in their limited roles
as potential lunchmeat for the monster. Going and McGowan are
anything but damsels in distress and the older O’Toole is
surprisingly spry, holding his own with the mostly 20-something
cast. But the best performance would have to be Schreiber’s; he
effectively creeps out the entire audience with his slimy,
necrophiliac deputy from the minute he slithers on the screen.
But despite the good acting and decent special effects, the
movie falls short with its limited script. Maybe if the filmmakers
spent more time fleshing out the characters, "Phantoms" would have
done better in getting the audience to care who won the battle of
man against beast.
Aimee Phan
Grade: C
Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes play the title roles in Gillian
Armstrong’s "Oscar and Lucinda."