This low-budget first feature takes a amusing look at the ideals, desires and neuroses of a bunch of mostly waist-class gay men who come together for a country weekend. Tetchy video documentarist Paul (Dreyfus) and passive Ben (Sands) have decided to end their five-year relationship; after just three months, romantic Matt (Urwin) reckons he’s met Mr Right in Owen (Ableson), who’s cagey of the idea that they move in together; meanwhile, sexually transmitted-working man Will (Coffey) brings along junior, working-class Adam (Petrucci), yet to give up to emotional or libidinous commitment. Attraction, disloyalty, jealousy and misunderstanding come across their progress. The performances are on the unharmed convincing, while every so commonly the petty, ratty tensions, coupled with lines of acerbic facetiousness, hint at a more complex scenario of genuine drag and contradiction.

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Aside from majuscule snakes, the only right connection director Dwight Little’s Anacondas: The Hunt as the Blood Orchid has with 1997s Anaconda is the presence of screenwriter Hans Bauer. Instead of a sequel, this is actually a standalone story, but the interface similarities (remote jungle, dangerous river, dilapidated boat, biiig snakes, expendable victims) are all present and accounted fit, and Petite delivers the umpteenth version of the film about a gathering of eremitical characters doing battle against some oversized living thing physical, with all of the necessary jump scares and skirmish scenes included.

It’s off to the jungles of Borneo for the benefit of a small group of pharmaceutical party explorers, on a charge to find Perennia Immortalis (aka The Blood Orchid), a rare flower that lies comatose in favour of seven years and blooms for only six months. What makes judgement the Blood Orchid so distinguished is that it is believed to contain a strange chemical that will stretch out cellular life (your hull, not your phone), which a woman character refers to as “the pharmaceutical of a piece to the well of youth”—in other words, it is worth billions and billions of dollars. With on the contrary two weeks leftist in the flower’s bloom succession, the bickering research conspire has to quickly head up-river after renting the predictably rundown boat with the obligatory assiduously-drinking captain (Johnny Messner), but it seems no one is au fait of the nest of humongous anacondas.

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I was undoubtedly one of the six people who saw this during its little theatric liquefy (my daughter Sam being one of the others), and I went in with extremely destitute expectations. This is not pivotal action filmmaking by any means, but I’ll accept genuine surprise at having enjoyed it as much as I did, stable with Little’s overuse of cute mess about reaction shots—though Sam when one pleases loudly disagree with me on that point. The cast is extraordinarily watchable, with Salli Richardson-Whitfield channeling Pam Grier as cold-as-ice Gail or Matthew Marsden’s ominous Jack, but in the end they’re all not much more than what it takes snake food with easily identifiable personalities.

There is a whole lot less snake fight here than I would bear expected, and Little and Bauer shake a leg most of the movie as a straight-insolent jungle flick, but that’s not necessarily a slam. The snake CG effects are better than average, and bits congenial the on high injection of the team wading under the aegis the river while the unseen anaconda loops in between them are signally fun. Some of the sequences, like a boat crashing from waterfalls, are particularly pretentiously done and able, and as a culminate I never felt like the script was padded with the well-known expository filler and unneeded character development in-between CG reptile attacks. There was adequate jungle exploring and danger (and a subplot involving a poisonous CG spider), that settle accounts without the enormous snakes it managed to more than applicable my induce as the duration.

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House of Sand and Fog

USA, 2003. Rated R. 126 minutes.
Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Jonathan Ahbout, Frances Fisher, Kim Dickens, Navi Rawat, Carlos Gomez, Kia Jam, Jaleh Modjallal
Vadim Perelman and Shawn Lawrence Otto, based on the post by Andres Dubus III

Genuine Music:
James Horner

Cinematography:
Roger Deakins
Michael London, Vadim Perelman
Vadim Perelman

 uick! Name the most influential person in America .

George Bush?

Please.

Bill Gates?

Closer, but no.

The most influential person in America must surely be Oprah Winfrey. There are, seemingly, millions who tune in every weekday afternoon for instructions on what to think, like, and buy. An appearance on her show is more coveted by artists and entertainers than a spot on Leno or Letterman. Any novel selected as her Book of the Month becomes a guaranteed bestseller.

The success of Oprah's Book of the Month picks on the big screen has been more of a mixed bag. Past screen adaptations have included

The Deep End of the Ocean

(?The search for her son was over. The search for her family was just beginning.?)

, A Map of the World

(?A story about the amazing places life can take you.?), and

White Oleander

(?Where does a mother end and a daughter begin??)—none of them huge box office successes. Despite the films' undeniable star power, the emotionally introspective material Oprah favors isn't very cinematic.

Andres Dubus'

House of Sand and Fog

is the latest Oprah selection to make it to the big screen. With ?some dreams can't be shared? as its tagline and two Oscar winners in Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly going head-to-head, it promises more thrills than the previous films. At times, it delivers. Alas, the full result is an overlong, overwrought, overcooked mess-o-drama similar to the others. (Okay, okay,

White Oleander

was pretty good.)

I'll get into the film's boring procedural inaccuracies later in this review, but first, let's tackle the emotional missteps. Meet the strangely passive Kathy Nicolo (a recovering addict who has seemingly been lying in bed with the shades drawn since her husband left several months prior) as she steps over piles of unopened mail (presumably containing eviction notices) to open the door when the sheriff's department arrives to kick her out of her home. She doesn't protest much, even for a manic depressive. You would think just a little angry screaming would be apropos. Nonetheless, Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard) takes sympathy on the vacant protagonist. He helps her move and gives her contact information for a legal assistance office. Later, the married Lester will fall in love with her for no particularly good reason and step outside the law to fling shit at the proverbial fan.

As Kathy explores her lack of recourses, Iranian immigrant Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), a former colonel in the Shah's army, has finally saved some $40,000, despite spending a fortune on his daughter's wedding and his wife Nadi's insistence on living far beyond their means. A governmental auction of repossessed property presents an opportunity to alter his family's economic situation and regain some of the status they left behind. He closes for $75,000, and puts the property (worth three times that—at least) immediately up for resale. Perhaps they will wait a few months before leaving, though, because the bungalow does remind Nadi of their beautiful villa overlooking the Caspian Sea.

Ben Kingsley as Colonel Behrani in

House of Sand and Fog

At the Colonel's daughter's wedding, guests speculate on what mysterious, dashing things the Colonel might be doing nowadays. The truth is that he works two menial jobs, as a construction worker and a gas station cashier. By tracking his every expense down to the last Snickers bar, he has been able to maintain a façade of affluence, maintaining the semblance of a lifestyle similar to what the Behranis enjoyed before fleeing Iran . He even cleans and changes into expensive clothes in the basement of his building before going up to his apartment, lest anyone see the menial life to which he is reduced. His unwillingness to yield in the face of an obvious injustice becomes an obstacle that Kathy and Lester will do everything in their power to dislodge.

Despite his rigidity, the film seems to sympathize more with the Colonel—who has invested his whole life and soul into realizing the American Dream—than with Kathy, who has lackadaisically thrown it away. Kathy is vaguely written, and Connelly's listless performance fails to fill in the blank spaces. Only when Kathy visits her former home and develops an unspoken sympathetic connection with Nadi do both Connelly and Kathy begin to come to life. She takes a drink (claiming that her addiction was never to alcohol) and resumes smoking, with first-time director Vadim Perelman focusing on her cigarettes like they're a crack pipe. Lester, whom the Colonel correctly identifies as a weak man, comments at one point that he doesn't deserve Kathy. ?Of course you do,? she reassures him. She's right. Kathy and Lester definitely suit each other, but most viewers shouldn't have to suffer through getting to know them.

The Colonel, on the other hand, is a fascinating character whose many internal conflicts and contradictions wage war against each other in Kingsley's astonishing performance. (In contrast, Perelmen asks Connelly to express Kathy's internal turmoil by wandering around a pier like she did in

Requiem for a Dream

.) The multiracial Kingsley (born Krishna Bhanji in Yorkshire , of English, East Indian, and South African descent) is even better than in

Gandhi

. Though he doesn't speak a word of Farsi, you never doubt for a moment that he is Iranian. Though the slightly xenophobic Colonel verbalizes what he is feeling more than necessary, Kingsley also benefits from the best bits of Perelman and Otto's screenwriting, which constructs a convincing (and quotable) immigrant perspective on the United States and its ?spoiled? inhabitants.

Sadly, the rest of the film doesn't deserve Kingsley or the touching efforts of Iranian film star Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays Nadi. Insensitive government bureaucracies are a popular target, but

House of Sand and Fog

is Serious Drama, and in Serious Drama, you better get the details right, or the foundation for your film crumbles under the weight of two hours of heavy-handed sentimentality. The explanation behind the film's inciting incident—Kathy's eviction is for non-payment of a mere $500 in business taxes that she doesn't actually owe in the first place—and the subsequent series of events, in which the home is auctioned off in just a day or two, are not

completely

beyond the realm of plausibility, but?well, yeah, they are, pretty much.

Not only do the property seizure and auction take place well shy of a year from when Kathy's supposed tax comes due, but the film also asks us to believe all this could happen in our age of massive lawsuits. Were the events in the film actually to take place, a negligent county government could be sued for literally millions in damages, and the county employees would know that and behave accordingly. Moreover, Kathy's attorney (Frances Fisher) could easily obtain a court injunction to delay proceedings. As a final demonstration of the writers' incomprehension of government and regulation, the Colonel decides one day to demolish part of the roof to add a small terrace, and the job is quickly accomplished. Construction permits for work like that take months to obtain, and believe me, in a suburban neighborhood, some busybody would

definitely

complain, and the terrace would have to come down.

Director of photography Roger Deakins contributes a polished look, as usual, but the story is a muddle too obviously manipulated to reach a tragic conclusion. Perelman's inattention to detail seems to have become exacerbated in the editing room. For example, Lester is called in by an angry internal affairs officer, but we never see the scene or learn the result. Plus, if one of the characters (not of the law enforcement variety) suddenly has a gun, you should probably establish how he or she gained access to it.

These mistakes and the overwritten dialogue help kill the suspense, making the two-hour film feel like a slack three. Lester self-destructing out of weakness and Behrani self-destructing out of strength is an interesting juxtaposition, but the entirety of the endeavor, with the droopy Kathy cast as the

femme fatale

, is a bit too silly. (Or is it more accurate to blame the house, and say the film has a

maison fatale

?) Kingsley is well worth seeing, yet the power of his magnificent performance is further smothered by James Horner's literal reading of the title in his score. He blankets the film with unimaginative, insistently melodramatic music. You have been warned. Bring ibuprofen.

Review ©

December 2003

by AboutFilm.Com and the author.


Images © 2003 Dreamworks LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Flashdance comes to England

by

Robert Roten

, Skin Critic

December 21, 2000

– "Billy Elliot" is one of those British stand-up-and-cheer feel-good movies, but with a hard edge to it, like "The Full Monty."

The story concerns the struggles of a young boy to become a dancer against all odds in a tough coal-mining town. It is not based on a real story. Elliot, (played by newcomer Jaime Bell) sees some girls practicing for ballet in the same gym where he takes his boxing lessons. He becomes intrigued.

Billy's father, Jackie, (played by Gary Lewis of "East is East"), and his brother, Tony (Jamie Draven), are both union stalwarts. A long, bitter strike against the local coal mine is in progress and the Elliot family is suffering because of it. Knowing his father is opposed to Billy using his boxing money for dance lessons, he tries to keep it a secret.

The dance instructor, Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters of "Educating Rita") sees Billy as a once-in-a-lifetime dancing talent. She's not about to give up on him. Complicating matters is Billy's friend, Michael (played by Stuart Wells), whose budding homosexuality seems to call into question Billy's own sexuality. Billy's sexuality is under close scrutiny because of his passion for ballet dancing. He doesn't want to be thought of as a "puff" (British slang for a male homosexual). This word, and a great deal of profanity spices the language of the film. The choice of ballet leads him into constant conflict with the forces around him. It may be that writer Lee Hall overplayed the whole sexuality angle because it does take up a lot of screen time and it isn't all that relevant to the main subject of the film. Then again, the coal miner's strike is only peripherally relevant as well. As Steven Soderbergh said in a recent interview, a genre film is a great way to put social messages into a film without being so obvious. This film is pretty obvious with its social messages. It is about like dumping a tablespoon of catsup into an omelette.

Some of the dance numbers are pretty good, some are derivative. One dance number looked as if it was lifted from "Tap." Gregory Hines' angry prison cell tap is transported into an angry outhouse dance number in England. Hines does it better. Bell is a solid dancer who serves up some "Flashdance"-style numbers from time to time, a sort of mixture of tap, traditional, modern dance and ballet, with a little "Riverdance" thrown in as well.

Bell is also a fine actor, backed up by a solid cast. Lewis is great as the deeply conflicted father, who, despite appearances to the contrary, is willing to make almost any sacrifice to help his son. Wells is enchanting as Billy's delicate best friend. Walters does a wonderful job of showing us a woman with a tough exterior, but who has a generous heart. The cast all does a good job of showing how people, despite their prejudices and suspicions, often manage to do the right thing in the end. The dance numbers are generally well choreographed. The original music by Stephen Warbeck is rousing, the kinetic cinematography by Brian Tufano and film editing by John Wilson add to the power of the story and director Stephen Daldry pulls all the right emotional strings. This film rates a B.

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Click here for links to places to buy this movie in video and/or DVD format, the soundtrack, books, even used videos, games and lots of other stuff

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Directed by Trey Parker

Part of what's so funny about the first part of "Team America" is that Parker and Stone have managed to satirize movies that, because they were so vulgar and bullying and ludicrous, seemed to be impossible to satirize. They've got the clichés of '80s action movies cold: There's the tragedy haunting one T.A. member; the talented but unsteady rookie who has his own trauma to overcome, which he will inevitably face at a crucial moment; there's the unexplained resentment a team member feels for the new guy; the tangled romantic alliances, and so on.

The mimicry of the technical aspects of those pictures is note-perfect. The cinematography by Bill Pope (who shot the "Matrix" movies) fetishizes the armature and mayhem on display. When Team America planes zoom out of their mountain HQ, a bad '80s-style number "America, Fuck Yeah!" blasts on the soundtrack. (There's even a slow version, the "Bummer Remix" for a more, uh, introspective moment.) And there's a priceless montage shot on location in Washington where Gary, the rookie, accepts his awesome Team America responsibilities by gazing on the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol building. All the while, a country ballad that goes "What would yew dew for frayh-dom?" plays on the soundtrack. (As "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" demonstrated, Trey Parker is a whiz at musical parody.)

The movie also has a great Bond-movie evil mastermind, Kim Jong Il (or as Jesse Helms once referred to him in the Senate, "Kim Jong Two"). With his chubby cheeks and beady eyes magnified by huge glasses, his elongated forehead and black pompadour, the North Korean dictator looks like the love child of Mao and Conway Twitty. Parker and Stone have used the hoary old trick of having him confuse his L's and his R's, and if you're above laughing at that, you're a better person than I am. (The highlight of Kim's locutions comes in his ballad about the sadness of being an absolute dictator, "I'm So Ronery.")

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Sean Penn and Tim Robbins are ripe for satire