Screenscene

Friday, February 26, 1999

Screenscene

"8mm"

Starring Nicolas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix

Directed by Joel Schumacher

Late in the second hour of Joel Schumacher's excruciating "8mm," Detective Tom Welles (Cage) exclaims aloud while pummeling one of the film's villains with both fists, "I'll never get tired of hurting you, Eddie." This seems to be the philosophy behind the entire film "8mm," a non-stop attack on good taste that seems to challenge audiences to walk out of the theater in disgust. It's a challenge they should be inclined to accept.

"8mm" is the newest film from screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, the dark mind who gave the world the ultra-violent (but much better crafted) "Seven," and the similarities between both films are obvious. Where "Seven" delighted in disgusting audiences with gore-filled, elaborate murders, "8mm" chooses to focus on the perverse underground world of pornography, and the results are equally unpleasant.

Welles has been hired by an elderly widow of a recently deceased billionaire to find out the origins of a mysterious film found among his personal items. The film, which is shown in almost complete entirety throughout "8mm," depicts a young girl being raped and brutally stabbed to death by a leather-clad brute. The quest for answers leads Welles to the Los Angeles porn underground, where a clerk at an adult book store helps him to find the culprits responsible for the making of the movie.

Schumacher has described this thriller as a statement about exploitation and a warning about the availability of child pornography, but lying at the very core of "8mm" is a central hypocrisy: How can a movie decry pornographic images designed to titillate and amuse yet show these same images to an audience, attempting to titillate and amuse them? The movie can't decide whether it wants to be troubling or exciting; and it winds up being neither.

The resulting film is a meandering collection of gruesome set pieces, with no story to carry viewers along, and no sense that at the end of the journey any sort of meaning awaits to reward their witnessing such perversity.

Though Schumacher's direction fails to lead the actors in an interesting manner or give the movie any distinguishable style to speak of, most of the fault for the wretched "8mm" falls on the shoulders of screenwriter Walker. His dark vision could potentially prove a background for an intriguing thriller, but he is so interested in shocking and disgusting people that he forgets to entertain them or instruct them. His films become the equivalent of a snuff film - designed solely to arouse through extreme fetishistic violence.

Lonnie Harris

Rating: 1

"20 Dates"

Starring Myles Berkowitz

Directed by Myles Berkowitz

"20 Dates" is so simple, it's really ingenious. Like a kid with a video camera pretending to be Spielberg shooting some fantastic story, writer and director Myles Berkowitz is filming something fantastic in the adult world - falling in love.

It's a simple concept. Berkowitz, an aspiring filmmaker and a recent divorcee, is down on his luck both personally and professionally. Berkowitz's solution is to document 20 dates he will go on in his quest for true love. Plus, as Berkowitz mentions on numerous occasions, it is a film about finding real love between real people in real situations, not the kind where music crescendos as a couple passionately kisses.

With such a rich premise, Berkowitz knows what's entertaining as 20 dates are shown in a sparse 88 minutes. Like a radio DJ, Berkowitz never lets up on the humor or allows moments to stagnate whether he is looking for dates in a supermarket or uses his agent's son to go girl-hunting.

The dates are not shown continuously as Berkowitz often comments on any subject that strikes his fancy about love or dating. Sometimes, he visits his financier, Elie, who is bent on making him put in "pretty women, tits, ass" and Tia Carrere.

When Berkowitz does go on a date, the results vary, but they are always entertaining. But of all the dates he has gone on, Elisabeth is the only woman who has made him nervous and unsure, and who he actively pursues.

When they go out on their second date, Berkowitz's voice-over informs us that the passionate kiss isn't the most dramatic moment in real life, but it is the moment when two people feel comfortable just barely touching each other's hands.

But there's a problem, Elie doesn't like the title "17 Dates" (how many he's gone on before he became serious with Elisabeth) when Berkowitz promised a movie called "20 Dates." So Berkowitz has to go on three more dates to satisfy the requisite he put on his film.

So the real life climax here is whether Berkowitz will give up his personal life or his professional life.

Everything about this movie is great except for one minor detail. In his quest to capture the dating world according to the real world, Berkowitz forgot to include people who didn't look like potential supermodels. Every one of his dates is gorgeous, which really defeats the purpose of showing reality.

Sandy Yang

Rating: 8

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