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		Points of View October 4, 2001 Guest Column © 2001 Joe Kirkish Reprinted with Permission

Mystery, sentiment, silly sex mark local movie fare

HEARTS IN ATLANTIS (PG-13 for violence & some mild sexual situations): Here's a Stephen King movie that makes a strong pitch to rise above the standard Hollywood fluff -- and despite an uneven script almost succeeds.

Two stories run alternately. In one (as in King's earlier Stand By Me), a man reminisces at the burial of a long-time friend, flashes back 40 years to their friendship in 1960 -- shot in nostalgic warm tones -- when they with a girl formed a lovely trio as they played innocently and happily in a sylvan paradise of their making. The other, the main story -- shot in cooler shades -- plots the reminiscing man as the boy simultaneously playing with his two friends while struggling with a financially strapped mother who takes in a mysterious stranger for the rooms above them -- a man who becomes a wonderful father image to the boy, but who lives in constant fear of mysterious " low men" who will take him away.

The two stories add up to a "coming of age" loss of innocence message, one that proves -- as most such films do -- that life isn't fair, that justice does not always win out. It is atmospheric, rhapsodic, even suspenseful and haunting in its mix of nostalgia and mystery.

The cast -- from Anthony Hopkins as the mysterious man, Anton Yelchin as the precocious boy, Hope Davis as his harassed mother and Mika Boorem as the young girl of the trio - all are excellent, capably directed by Scott Hicks with just the right touch to reveal the two tales and mesh them nicely -- the sentimental with the frightening. Augmenting is the spectacular photography by Piotr Sobocinski (Polish cinematographer who made many of Kieslowski's haunting movies so memorable, and who died shortly after this filming -- thus a dedication to him at the close of the film).

If there is one disappointment in this ambitious attempt, it lies in the script by veteran writer William Goldman -- famous for his novels and movies about capricious, adolescent men as in The Sting and Butch Cassidy. Here he mixes clever dialog with some so mundane and uninspired it dampens an otherwise beautiful movie with lofty motivation. (Grade: B)

ZOOLANDER (PG-13 for unnecessary profanity, silly sexual situations and mild violence): Back in 1994 Robert Altman made a film, Ready to Wear (Pret à Porter), which bombed; it featured a sometimes too subtle satire on the fashion industry, but I found it delightfully amusing in the Altman way. This similar idea -- co-written, directed and starred by Ben Stiller -- takes swipes at the same industry, here focusing on male models as they primp, vogue and wage competitive war with one another. At the same time it introduces secret agent stuff (unpleasantly reminiscent of The Manchurian Candidate, a 1962 film, in its use of hypnotism to turn a normal human into an assassin). Stiller is the subject here, a top model known for his various gazes (all of which look alike), now in fierce competition with a long-haired blonde model who challenges Stiller's blasé style with a sexy, laid-back style.

It's enough to create a very funny skit on, say, "Saturday Night Live," but hardly enough material to stretch into a full feature. Stiller works desperately (and on occasion successfully) to turn this into a zany, zippy satire, but it doesn't work. As Derek Zoolander, with a terrible Schwarzenegger accent, he appears in virtually every scene -- mugging and cavorting wildly -- but much of the humor becomes repetitious or is ill-timed. Only now & then - as in the duels between the two top models -- does it become mildly amusing, but rarely screamingly funny, as Stiller obviously desires.

Stiller resorts to many usual laugh producers of low comedy movies including sexual asides (top male model organization is called "Balls Models" and is operated by a foul-mouthed agent who complains that his prostate is the size of a melon and who fondles female models with nonchalant abandon).

Stiller is funny when properly directed. He's not ready to write and direct AND act, and this failure proves it. The desperation shows all too often; it results in the least humorous 85-minutes ever spent in a theatre. If it weren't for the few, scattered laughs and refreshingly offbeat, though inappropriate, use of Stiller's real life father as the scatological Balls Ballstein, it would fall flat on its face. (Grade: D+)

Learn more about the author of this guest column, Joe Kirkish.

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