Pictured D.E.B.S.
Winter-Spring 2005 Movie Preview
Though it’s true that Hollywood saves its big, mostly action guns for the coveted summer slot (Star Wars: Episode 3, Batman Begins and the Spielberg-Cruise remake of War of the Worlds will duke it out starting this May), and brings out their second wave during the holidays (Harry Potter 4, Steve Martin as Inspector Clousseau in The Pink Panther remake and Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated King Kong will all usher in the 2005 yuletide season), there’s plenty of interesting cinema fare to provide distraction until the spring thaw.
JANUARY
Two documentaries arriving next week sound fascinating to me. In The Realms of the Unreal, which opens at the Music Box, focuses on Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger who died virtually friendless and without relatives in 1973. A reclusive school janitor by day, Darger spent his nights creating paintings and a 15,000-page novel about the fantastical Vivian Girls, seven angelic sisters who lead a rebellion against godless, child-enslaving men. Director Jessica Yu has animated many of Darger’s works and the film is narrated by Dakota Fanning.
The other documentary, Superstar in a Housedress, which plays at Facets, is the life story of Jackie Curtis, who, along with Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn, became the third of pop artist Andy Warhol’s triumphant superstar female impersonators. Warhol insisted that Curtis was not a drag queen but rather, ‘an artist—a pioneer without a frontier.’ The film, which is narrated by Lily Tomlin, attempts to show that while chronicling the short life of Curtis, who died at 38 from a drug overdose.
For action fans, Bruce Willis is back with his 219th entry into the genre, with Hostage, which is getting ‘Bruce is back’ buzz and whose director, Florent Emilio Siri, is known for his work on video games. Ethan Hawke heads up the remake of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 19, in which he plays a cop who must protect a mobster (Lawrence Fishburne) from a mob.
The dead of winter offers two competing scare fests (notice how these pictures always come in twos?). Hide and Seek features dad Robert DeNiro and daughter Dakota Fanning recovering from mom’s suicide. Dad hangs onto reality but daughter seems to be spending more and more time with her imaginary friend. Alone in the Dark has Christian Slater as a paranormal detective (huh?) slowly ‘unraveling a series of mystery events’ (though not who made the mystery footprints in the snow and why the snow is yellow). This is yet another adaptation of a video game from the director of the spectacular flop House of the Dead and features Tara Reid as an anthropologist (!).
And James Cameron continues his underwater fetish with Aliens of the Deep, another IMAX documentary, this time about little seen creatures from the ocean floor. Get ready for 6-foot worms, white crabs and blind shrimp—in 3-D!
FEBRUARY
Debra Messing plays a single woman who hires an escort to take her to her sister’s wedding in the romantic comedy The Wedding Date that sounds like a Will & Grace episode outtake and not so bad Valentine’s Day fodder. So does Bride & Prejudice, the Indian remake of the Jane Austen ‘Pride’ classic (complete with Bollywood musical numbers) from Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chandra. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the documentary team who’ve tackled Tammy Faye Bakker, Monica Lewinsky, murderous club kids, rent boys, gay Republicans, and wondered if Hitler might have been gay, now take us Inside Deep Throat for the making of the notorious porn classic. The film is coming out with an NC-17 rating so get ready for plenty of ’70s era steamy footage of Linda Lovelace demonstrating on Harry Reems—all narrated by Gore Vidal (an inspired choice).
Two films being touted as having ‘gay overtones’ and/or ‘gay characters’ (both which could mean practically ANY film) also arrive in the love month. Because of Winn-Dixie is a multi-cast picture from Joy Luck Club director Wayne Wang about a little girl who befriends a stray dog and meets lots of southern-fried eccentrics that include Jeff Daniels, Eva Marie Saint, Cicely Tyson, and Dave Matthews in his big-screen debut as an ex-con who sings to the animals he liberates from pet stores. The buzz on this is, ‘Finally, a movie for mothers, their daughters and/or gay sons.’ Kimberly Elise stars in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, a comedy which sounds like a cross between How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Steel Magnolias—with a cross-dressing twist thrown in.
Other February fare includes the return of Keanu Reeves in Constantine playing (and I love this) an alien detective—yet another sci-fi thriller based on a comic book and openly gay Alan Cumming has a nice part in Son of the Mask, the long overdue sequel to the Jim Carrey special effects comedy. This one stars Jamie Kennedy. Hottie Skeet Ulrich, Scott Foley and Christina Ricci battle werewolves in Cursed, which director Wes Craven hopes will do for the ‘full moon intolerant’ what the Scream series did for serial killers. And in Man of the House, permanent crank Tommy Lee Jones finds himself forced to co-exist with a group of cheerleaders after they witness a murder. Sounds like good astral projection material for the ladies.
MARCH
I was right! After all those flops, Vin Diesel’s making his first comedy. It’s called The Pacifier and sounds as appealing as Kindergarten Cop, to which it’s already being compared. I’m also looking forward to Be Cool, the sequel to Get Shorty in which Travolta again plays the hit man turned Hollywood producer, Chili Palmer. The original black comedy was a delight and though I’m not happy that Rene Russo isn’t back, this sequel adds Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughan and best—The Rock as Travolta’s bodyguard wanna be actor—who’s gay.
The time travel, big-game sci-fi action picture A Sound of Thunder, originally scheduled for last year, opens with Ben Kingsley in the title role. This has a nifty trailer as does the time travel, big romance, love spanning the ages picture The Jacket, with Adrien Brody in the lead. The Ring Two, sequel to the Naomi Watts chiller, also rescheduled from last year, finally opens this month as does yet another sequel, the Sandra Bullock undercover cop comedy, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.
That coincides with the release of the feature-length version of director Angela Robinson’s D.E.B.S., the group of plaid-skirted schoolgirls by day who are secret agents by night. The film opened last year’s gay and lesbian film festival, Reeling, and needless to say, has plenty of ‘coded’ action. Finally, at long last there is the Ice Princess, a tween picture about a plucky, determined ice skater that might (might) make me at long last forgo my annual viewing party of Ice Castles. But I’m not giving up my skates or my husband’s hot chocolate recipe just yet. See www.villagelighthouse.com.