This year has been considered weak for movies. Looking back at the year's releases, that's probably true. But there is something cleansing about the year-end ritual of the holiday movie avalanche. The overwhelming number of films in release enables one to completely forget early 2000 disasters like the Diane Keaton-Meg Ryan-Lisa Kudrow dramedy, Hanging Up; Roman Polanski's bumbling, occult thriller, The Ninth Gate; and Ron Shelton's laughless, sports comedy, Play It to the Bone. Better yet, being swamped by the December deluge makes it possible for me to erase the image of Martin Lawrence in drag from Big Momma's House completely out of my mind. Like the Oscar voters, sometimes it pays to have a short-term memory.
The scent of Oscar is in the air, and that makes moviegoing all the more exciting. The diversity of holiday movies actually makes it possible to be surprised at the multiplex. Think about it: Choosing a movie and not being entirely sure what you're going to see. For me, the real treat is discovering that there still can be intrigue in a ticket stub.
Granted, the final weeks of moviegoing only further confirm that Hollywood is out of new ideas. Count Dracula is resuscitated for another horror-go-round, Dracula 2000. Nicolas Cage takes a swipe at the ghost of George Bailey in the Christmas melodrama The Family Man. The student/mentor story gets an urban update from Finding Forrester. The mountain-climbing actioner Vertical Limit borrows its rescue story from the bestseller Into Thin Air. Tom Hanks provides another version of Robinson Crusoe in Cast Away. Pair these films with other year 2000 entries such as the Ben Hur-inspired Gladiator, remakes of Shaft and Bedazzled, and the Animal House outtake Road Trip, and it makes an original movie like the complex, buddy tale Chuck & Buck all the more impressive.
During this wintry finale to the year 2000 movies, the summer blockbusters have finally lost their luster and holiday movies shift toward more serious and Oscar-friendly fare.
Not every film is destined to be an Oscar nominee. But going to the movies over the holidays gives the impression that at least every significant film stands a chance. Now, that's something that could never be said about Mission: Impossible 2.
-- Steve Ramos
The Family Man
It's George Bailey redux. There's no better way to describe director Brett Ratner's (Rush Hour) Christmas drama. Trying to become a new version of It's a Wonderful Life is setting some intentionally high standards. Luckily, Nicolas Cage is the actor assuming the Jimmy Stewart position. Under the gaze of Cage's hound-dog gaze and heavy eyelids, The Family Man (co-written by David Diamond and David Weissman) turns social fantasy into a heartfelt tale of spiritual redemption.
Fifteen years after dumping his college girlfriend, Kate (Tea Léoni), Manhattan executive Jack Campbell (Cage) receives an unexpected second chance after bragging to a convenience store robber (Don Cheadle) about his regret-free life. Campbell has all the trappings of success. But when he wakes up one Christmas morning and finds himself in a different life -- married to the woman he left behind, two children, a house in New Jersey and a job in a tire store -- Campbell discovers a new set of life priorities.
The Family Man exchanges Campbell's New Jersey for Bailey's Bedford Falls. Still, it's amusing just how close the film hugs Frank Capra's 1946 holiday drama. There are cute children and Léoni is as sympathetic a wife as Donna Reed. Even the films' messages are the same: Family, friends and small-town mores are what really matter in life.
Still, I have to admire The Family Man for setting such intentionally high standards. It's difficult for any movie to capture the Christmas spirit.
Cage makes for a believable, romantic hero. He struck out earlier this year in the actioner Gone in 60 Seconds. This time, with The Family Man, Cage moves a couple of notches closer to his Leaving Las Vegas and Moonstruck roles. Away from the explosions, Cage gains the time and quiet to reveal his dramatic range. Basically, he is the dramatic guide that makes sense out of Family Man's make-believe predicament.
"Please just tell me what's happening in plain English," Campbell begs his urban angel. "I just want my life back."
Her TV sitcom screwiness aside, Léoni remains real, sturdy and true throughout the film. It's Cage who undergoes dramatic change. Léoni's difficult task is making Cage's newfound love for the minivan lifestyle believable. And trust me, that's a difficult feat.
I don't know if I'm going to watch The Family Man as regularly as I watch It's a Wonderful Life. Still, I was impressed by Family Man's willingness to use Christmas as a metaphor. In this cynical age, that's a daring thing to do. In a holiday season that's relentlessly commercial, The Family Man is purer at heart than moviemade garbage like The Grinch. The Family Man does more than shake jingle bells in your face. It takes the time to tell a sentimental story. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)
CityBeat grade: B.
Finding Forrester
Veteran actor Sean Connery and newcomer Rob Brown team up for another mentor-student picture, similar to Good Will Hunting and Wonder Boys. Maybe it's true that there are no more original ideas left in cinema. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, as long as filmmakers appropriate well. In this case Gus Van Sant, the director of Good Will Hunting, is allowed to borrow from his own movie.
An underprivileged teen-ager from the Bronx (Brown) wins a scholarship to an Upper East Side prep school using both his academic and basketball skills. His adjustment is aided by a wealthy classmate (Anna Paquin). But his true friend is a reclusive, Salinger-like author (Connery) who ends up becoming the missing father figure.
First-time screenwriter Mike Rich squeezes every bit of drama out of his time-honored tale. Thankfully, Van Sant treats the material delicately. Finding Forrester is one of the quieter Hollywood movies in a long time. The film's subtle drama takes its time to explore characters, create a history, find its sense of place and then, slowly tell its story.
There will be comparisons to Good Will Hunting for Van Sant, although I can't imagine that being a bad thing. What's more important is whether or not Finding Forrester will erase Van Sant's awful remake of Psycho (1998) from audiences' memories.
Finding Forrester is the type of character-driven drama that Van Sant does so well. Like his earlier films (My Own Private Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy), it's real, emotional and substantial.
Connery delivers the type of macho bluster we've come to expect from him during a career of 70 films. With a tumbler of Scotch in one hand, he yells with appropriate gruffness. But during a rare moment away from his apartment, when he's lost among the crowd at Madison Square Garden, Connery shows Forrester's vulnerable side.
The real surprise is how Brown stands equal to Connery in every scene. Brown, a Harlem athlete, might just be playing an extension of himself. His performance is extraordinary just the same. Brown's accomplishment is capturing the anxiety of an intelligent boy who's ashamed to be intelligent around his friends.
The two writers develop a heartfelt and rich friendship. Amid stacks of books and a cluttered apartment, they bang away on old Underwood typewriters. Before long, the aspiring teen-age writer is learning from the acclaimed novelist.
A mentor/student tale like Finding Forrester's possesses few surprises. In fact, you'll probably be able to guess exactly what's going to happen. Thankfully, Finding Forrester's dead-on casting more than compensates for any lack of twists and turns. (Rated R.) -- SR
CityBeat grade: B.
Miss Congeniality
How do you keep a sexy Hollywood leading lady from seeming too out of touch with the masses? Julia Roberts solved this quandary a few years back in My Best Friend's Wedding. The answer is simple: sight gags. There may be nothing funnier than seeing one of People magazine's Most Beautiful Women fall on her face. As a society, after all, we're just a bunch of jealous slobs. We like to see the demigods reduced to mortal blunders. Some of the hottest actresses working today already have figured this out, but none more than Sandra Bullock.
In Miss Congeniality, Bullock plays Gracie Hart, a hard-nosed FBI agent who would sooner cold-cock a man than get caught in an embrace with him. There is absolutely nothing glamorous about her life. She packs heat. She lives in a modest apartment and eats microwave dinners exclusively. She wallops the punching bag in her living room after an awful day at work.
But just when you begin to feel bad for her and depressed in general, Bullock uncorks a surprising pratfall. Presto! Instant endearment. Gracie is offered career redemption if she will agree to go undercover at the Miss United States pageant. Seems a Unabomber-type assassin has targeted the ceremony as the site of his next bombing. If someone in the pageant is helping him, the Feds need someone inside to stop him.
In addition to being against beauty contests on principle, Gracie is a far cry from one of the 50 finalists. It would take a miraculous makeover and an attitude adjustment to pull it off.
Miss Congeniality is not trailblazing comedy. The jokes are obvious and predictable. But Bullock's charm wins out. The film is hers to carry, and she does so easily. There may not be a cuter moment in film this year than when Gracie playfully sings, "You wanna date me/you think I'm sexy," to her stunned coworker after the transformation.
Greatly helping the comedy are Bullock's costars: Michael Caine, William Shatner and Candice Bergen. Oscar-winner Caine appears to be embracing supporting work. Good thing, too, because he's great at it. As Gracie's beauty coach, his strong presence is the only force in the film that equals Bullock's star-wattage. Shatner and Bergen are the pageant coordinators who balk at Gracie's entry. Sadly, most of their really good bits were wasted in the commercials, but they still manage to elicit smiles if not guffaws.
The film gets a head of steam on the way into its third act, then dies a quick death at the hands of a trite script. Did we need an action scene at the end to tie it all together? Not likely.
Worse still is the passé nod to beauty contests that must be contractually obligated when using the Miss USA trademark. These women aren't just beautiful bodies parading around in swimwear, Gracie (and we) discover by film's end. They're real people with real dreams. Miss Congeniality didn't need it. The ugly duckling story and its accompanying moral would have sufficed. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)
CityBeat grade: B.
You Can Count on Me
First-time writer/director Kenneth Lonergan arrives with a mixed bag of moviemade projects. When he wasn't busy writing plays, Lonergan crafted the screenplays for the Billy Crystal/Robert De Niro comedy Analyze This and the cartoon farce The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. For his own filmmaking debut, Lonergan heads in a different direction and tackles the meaning of the modern-day family. You Can Count on Me, Lonergan's debut effort, is a rich and poignant melodrama. Of all the American films this year, none offers a more humanist portrait than You Can Count on Me.
Two siblings, orphaned at an early age, have grown apart as adults. Sammy Prescott (Laura Linney), the older of the two, has stayed in their hometown where she works at the local bank and raises her 8-year-old son Rudy (Rory Culkin) as a single mother. Terry (Mark Ruffalo), the younger brother she helped raise, is a self-destructive vagabond with an allergy to responsibility. Their reunion is bound to generate some emotional fireworks.
Terry's return upsets Sammy's well-ordered life. Terry takes Rudy fishing, to pool halls and the local bar. Sammy starts an affair with the married manager of the bank where she works (Matthew Broderick). They don't know each other anymore. Time and distance have changed things. Only the family home left by their parents offers any common ground.
Lonergan finds subtle comedy in the way that Sammy and Terry have drifted far apart. Sammy is a churchgoing mom with a strong moral rulebook. Terry is a drifter. Together, they create a humorous clash of personal politics. The drama occurs when their reunion begins to make an unexpected impact on both siblings.
Winner of two major prizes at the Sundance Film Festival, You Can Count on Me never dissolves into familiar melodrama. Its characters are too believable to create any false emotions. Its storytelling is appropriately sentimental, but never trite or artificial. For a character-driven story like You Can Count on Me, the subtle and substantial performances from Linney and Ruffalo mean everything.
Ruffalo's is a breakout performance. He's a funny and goofball loner. For Linney, You Can Count on Me is her most substantial performance yet. Uptight and unlikable, she makes Sammy someone you believe can emotionally change and grow as you watch.
Still, the brightest spotlight belongs to Lonergan himself. You Can Count on Me reveals the hand of an assured filmmaker, capable of creating in-depth characters and real-life situations and combining them into an emotionally-moving drama. You Can Count on Me is sweet-natured, witty and poignant. In an era of digital effects, it's the one movie that thoroughly emphasizes its story. Here's hoping You Can Count on Me starts some sort of humanist trend in American film. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)
CityBeat grade: A.
