Friday, May 29, 1998
SCREENSCENE:
"Last Days of Disco"
Directed by Whit Stillman
Starring Chloee Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Mackenzie Astin and Chris Eigeman
What a fantastic scene in "Last Days of Disco" when Alice (played by the stunningly magnetic Chloee Sevigny) frames her dark silhouette in her suitor's door way, her precious figure grooving lusciously to the soft retro tune of "More, More, More" as she slowly starts sliding toward the bedroom which will occupy the rest of her boogie night. The composition of the scene is so arousing that director Whit Stillman now proves that he can even dazzle us on a cinematic level.
But it's still Stillman's trademarks - the glib bantering, the witty social critiques ("all recent college grads order vodka tonics") and wonderfully intimate feel for personalities and neighborhoods - which make "Last Days" a pleasure to watch from first to last.
Admittedly, watching a Stillman film demands a certain amount of an acquired taste. But like him or not, the cool thing about Stillman is that he's the voice of a community that no one else makes films about: mildly neurotic preppy socialites trying to make room for themselves in a world that largely won't have them. (He also directed "Barcelona," and his "Metropolitan" is a minor masterpiece.) In the movie, someone calls the kids "yuppie scum" when they're all thrown out of a New York hot spot, to which an offended Eigeman - a joyous study in cynical bastardom, as always - responds, "For a group to exist, the people in it have to say that they're a part of it."
Yes, they keep coming back - a more successful venture, of course, for Alice and her beautifully tactless friend Charlotte (Beckinsale). But the prep boys do manage to hook up with the girls inside, where they start downplaying the importance of group social life and engage in "ferocious pairing off."
Astin plays a yuppy advertising executive who simply must get into the club because he has clients to impress. One of his clients, unfortunately, turns out to be an undercover federal agent, and so the club's drug playground is exposed, dousing the era's already dwindling disco inferno once and for all.
Tommy Nguyen
Grade: A-
"Hope Floats"
Directed by Forest Whitaker
Starring Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick Jr. and Gena Rowlands
In a time when movie screens are filled with giant lizards destroying New York and blazing asteroids heading toward earth, it's nice to watch a quiet human drama. But it'd be nicer to watch one with a story that developed in a logical fashion.
"Hope Floats" tells the story of Birdee Pruitt (Bullock), the woman with the perfect life. She's the former beauty queen with a wonderful daughter and beautiful marriage to her high school sweetheart. But after discovering on national TV that her husband has been sleeping with her best friend, Birdee must rebuild her life and learn the things that are of real importance.
With daughter in hand, Birdee returns home to the small town she's put behind her, complete with bitter old acquaintances and an eccentric mother who's decorated the house with stuffed roadkill.
The film is supposed to follow Birdee's growth as she learns to float above adversity and regain her self-confidence. But "Hope Floats" is overly ambitious in its attempt at poignancy, trying to weave the themes of rediscovery, difficult family relationships and overcoming hardship all into one emotional tale. Instead, the elements are haphazardly inserted throughout the film.
The movie's failure to genuinely move the audience is no fault of its actors. Bullock gives her most heartfelt performance yet and is genuinely believable as the loving mother of a 9-year-old. The connection between Whitman and Bullock is equally realistic, from the dramatic scenes to the little forehead kisses. And with her dry remarks and biting advice, Rowlands is stellar as the tough-loving mother.
While director Whitaker ("Waiting to Exhale") is good at drawing out remarkable performances from his actors, he has a little trouble telling the story. Birdee's recovery and rediscovery does not play out in a linear fashion, and the audience never really sees her emotional progression.
So while the movie contains moving individual scenes and touching moments, "Hope Floats" does not create the needed impact.
Stephanie Sheh
Grade: B-
"Little Boy Blue"
Directed by Antonio Tibaldi
Starring Ryan Phillippe, John Savage, Shirley Knight and Nastassja Kinski
"Little Boy Blue" is one of those silly attempts at American Gothic, relentlessly overwrought in all of the genre's cliched battiness while not giving an ounce of respect for the quiet, inexplicable nuances of atmosphere, ecstasy and grace which truly mark the deliverance of this sort of imagination. ("Sling Blade" wasn't bad, but will we ever see anything like John Huston's "Wise Blood" again?)
Director Tibaldi confuses the requisite sense of mystery for tawdry suspense, as we try to figure out why this 19-year-old pitching sensation (Phillippe) chooses to hang around in the middle of nowhere with a violently deranged, penile-crippled father (Savage) who gets off from forcing his son to have sex with his own mother (Kinski). Apparently, the boy loves his two younger brothers so much that he can't leave them, even though he's been planning for years to take off with his uptown sweetheart after high school.
The movie then begins to reveal dark family secrets and whatnot, as an oddball woman (Knight) comes to town wearing a dorky cowboy hat and an attitude to match. She becomes a part of the movie's unintentionally laughable shoot-'em-up finale.
Within this stupid mess, at least there's Phillippe ("I Know What You Did Last Summer"), who commands a real attractive star presence on the screen, but without all the self-aware glossiness of a DiCaprio. His eyes have the same sensitive wavers that James Dean had, and the young actor can be seen, almost exclusively without a shirt on, in the upcoming "54."
Tommy Nguyen
Grade: C-