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		Points of View Joe Kirkish August 8, 2002 Guest Column © 2002 Joe Kirkish Reprinted with Permission

Little Gem Theatre to feature Harold and Maude

By Joe Kirkish

HOUGHTON -- The Little Gem Theatre continues to present golden oldies to a receptive audience. Coming up at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8, will be Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude -- a film that has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage. Ruth Gordon heads the cast as an offensive eccentric who becomes a beacon in the life of a self-destructive rich boy, played by Bud Cort. Together they attend funerals and indulge in specious philosophizing.

This is director Ashby's second major feature, marked by some great gags and the kind of sophomoric mocking humor that endeared it to the youth of the rebellious 70s. Ashby begins the film in a gross and macabre manner, and never once deviates from the concept. Now, that's style for any younger generation! Incidentally, John Alonzo's cinematography's a real plus.

In case you're not familiar with it, the Little Gem is located at 700 Calumet Street in Lake Linden -- right across from St. Joseph's Catholic Church on the main street.

More movies in town

SIGNS (Rated PG-13 for mature themes, some profanity, frightening moments and violence): The location is a normally peaceful farm area just 45 miles from Philadelphia, where strange things are happening in the night: animals acting up, odd sounds emanating in the corn field, swings swinging by themselves, unidentifiable sounds heard on the roof of the farm house -- all making Mel Gibson's farm character very nervous. And rightly so, because in his field of seven-foot-high corn are large areas smashed to the ground to make strange shapes when seen from the sky.

Gibson is an ex-clergyman, voluntarily leaving his calling when, six months earlier, his wife was senselessly killed in a car accident. That accident is shown in flashback inserts as in present time we see what might be the progressive, mysterious predictions of an alien invasion. Gibson with two children and his younger brother become more and more embroiled in that invasion, with the flashbacks working forward to an ultimate climactic confrontation, both with the aliens and the ex-clergyman's beliefs about faith and hope.

This spooky tale is the work of talented M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote, directed and co-produced the film. A good thing, too, because the script has serious logical flaws in it, but Shyamalan's expertise in directing -- at least for the moment -- covers them over and turns the story into a suspenseful, chilling alien visitors tale sandwiched in with one of lost faith and redemption. There remains only the sermonizing about belief and non-belief that is, perhaps, overdone, though it does turn this into more than another flick about flying saucers from outer space.

The cast is uniformly good, with Gibson doing his consistently morose bit (that he did with considerably more subtle variety in Man Without a Face), Joaquin Phoenix as his brother, Rory Culkin and Abignail Breslin as his children and Cherry Jones as a friend-of-the-family cop.

The clever claustrophobic effect, which never permits us to move away from the family as the alien information folds in on them, creates a level of tension rarely found in similar films. Also a plus, as with peeling an onion, each layer reveals a new revelation until all the questions have been answered and the conclusion is neatly drawn. This is a film to be enjoyed while it lasts; only afterwards does it fail believably to hold up. (Grade: B)

K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER (Rated PG-13 for mature themes and graphically injured people): There's a haunting scene of sailors playing soccer -- black figures against pure white snow, looking like a painting by Magritte in motion; it's worth the price of admission alone. In fact, if it weren't for a tacked on and totally unwarranted American "feel good" conclusion along with a dragged out, unnecessary final half hour, this based-on-a-true-situation movie could be a winner.

Kathryn Bigelow has directed a submarine action film with vitality, engendering all the suspense possible in a movie that combines two main themes: the folly of paranoid fears during the cold war of the early 60s and the conflict of personalities between the sub's present and former captains, both on the same sub with its former crew. 

Like Red October, our perspective is purely Russian. The high command insists a nuclear sub be discovered in Western waters, hoping its successes will prove Russia's supremacy in the cold war. But there is, from the start, every sign that this is a submarine unprepared, even cursed: it is sent to sea with incompetent men and defective construction. Ten men die even before the sub can be tested successfully, while working with nuclear power without the greatest care, all the expected casualties occur with dire consequences.

There are lessons learned from this story about paranoia and blind loyalty, about trust and distrust of command, about personality revelations in crisis situations. There are also all the obligatory submarine moments: the underwater shots of the grey whale-like body of the ship slicing through deep waters, the building of claustrophobia in limited space with limited life supports, the interactions of a handful of sailors and their reactions throughout the dangerous nuclear experiment, etc

In a film of this sort, where clichés could abound, great technical care has been taken to make this an original filmic experience. Jeff Cronenweth's cinematography reveals excitingly innovative shots, inside and outside the submerged sub; he also leaves the sub to shoot from the air as well as on the surface, all beautifully. Cronenweth borrows and updates a few tricks that made Hitchcock famous (like rapidly moving camera that appears to dive toward and then right through solid objects). Pacing, too, is rapid enough to hold tension and suspense right to the final disappointing moments.

Added to the personality characteristics might be that of hubris -- an element found in all Greek tragedies and, to some extent, in the best of Shakespeare's. Here, it seems to be the inability of the present captain to allow common sense override his ability to satisfy his superiors back in the Kremlin. It's a great weakness in this movie to bring about a change in the captain's stubborn personality -- a total reversal of character when none would be logical. To top the bad-guy-becoming-human, tears from this otherwise stoic, impassive man?

Of course, with Harrison Ford not only portraying the captain but acting as chief producer of the film, it's no wonder there's an anti-Captain Bligh happy conclusion. His captain begins with the hubris of a Bligh, but almost without motivation reverses a lifetime of beliefs and courses of action to come off heroically. 

The rest of the cast, and especially Liam Neeson as the second in command, perform believably -- far more than the usual stereotypes.

Undoubtedly, the makers of this film will tout the difficulties in filming under cramped conditions, in creating the disasters -- and even in the problems of aging a dozen or so members of the crew for the (unnecessary) epilogue. All deservedly commendable, I guess; they do add to the overall effectiveness of the film. (Grade: B)

MASTER OF DISGUISE (PG for sexual innuendoes and mild violence and vulgarities): Alas poor Dana Carvey -- just another of the talented Saturday Night Live cast to be tossed into a dreadful excuse for a plot in hopes that his varied capabilities could sustain 75 minutes (plus at least 10 minutes of phony out-takes at the end -- which prove far more entertaining than all that preceded it). They don't. No comic, regardless how talented and how clever his ability to make audiences roar during a short sketch, could ever turn this pumpkin into anything but a pumpkin.

Created much in the style of a "once upon a time" fairy tale, the film is, however, loaded with crudities (both subtle and obvious) and innuendoes that lift it well above the heads of the pre-teens at which its "once upon a time" make-believe style has been aimed. At the same time, a running flatulence gag brings the greatest laughs from this pre-adolescent crowd; it's on that vulgar level that the movie makes its best stand.

Carvey plays the youngest in a line of masters of disguise who use their abilities to foil crooks. We find him being taught the trade when grandfather comes to help him save his mother and father from a fate worse than ours. It's a thinly drawn storyline that leaves plenty of space for Carvey to play any number of characters, some (like a turtle-like character) rather amusing, but others (like a red-headed broad) that do nothing but fill time with unfunny ad-libbing. For every real hit there are dozens of misses -- and as the misses pile up, the film sinks farther and farther until even this master of jokes can no longer sustain it with his mugging abilities.

Even pretty Jennifer Esposito, the assistant who doesn't seem to know what she's doing with her role either as star or character, only offers a bit of eye candy and little more. Like so much of the film, she seems artificially inserted to expand the skimpy plot.

My advice: see the advance preview and enjoy the few laughs there. They're the best part of the entire show. (Grade: D)

AUSTIN POWERS' GOLDMEMBER (A healthy PG-13 for everything raunchy): Have we reached a time when "raunchy" is a positive assessment, particularly among the youth of our generation? There was a long line waiting to get into the theatre, and even the balcony, rarely used, was filling up when I arrived. It was non-stop bedlam before, during and after the film -- screaming, laughing kids exercising adolescent abandonment to this sometimes amusing piece of commercial junk. I was the only person over 16 so I felt rather uncomfortable -- unsmiling and impassive as they howled with glee at every raunchy or idiotic moment -- coming at the rate of about once every few seconds throughout this relatively plotless 90-minutes of sight gags and familiar Austin Powers off-color material -- some clever, most of it vulgar and repetitive.

To be honest, from the film makers point of view (Myers included), this is a fiendishly clever design to make millions on the basis of the earlier two flicks and long projected previews. It's also built on the theatre theory that, if you can't be good, be loud and fast. For the most part, that sums it up.

Gone were the previously clever parodies on James Bond flicks or the 70s. but if you like a movie that includes almost continuous sight gags based on bodily fluids, eating peeling skin, including every sexual gag this side of an R rating with enough references to male genitalia to make a gynecologist blush. Chinese twins are briefly inserted to highlight their names: Fook Me and Fook Yu, into a plot about saving the world destruction (from a bomb called Preparation H) -- and if you appreciate Myers in four -- count 'em - four characters -- you'll likely enjoy this movie. You might even laugh at lines like, "I took Viagra; it stuck in my throat -- neck's been stiff for hours." (Grade: C-)

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

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