THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/28/01 -- Vol. 20, No. 13
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, evelyn.leeper@excite.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
Ed Felt (Comment)
Amazon (Comments)
Movie Trailers--Millennium Philcon (Film comment)
Romantic Comedies from the Toronto International Film
Festival (Film reviews of SERENDIPITY, MONSOON
WEDDING, KISSING JESSICA STEIN, THE ART OF WOO,
and JALLA! JALLA!)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Ed Felt (Comment)
Back when I joined the System 75 Project at Bell Labs one of the
people I worked with was Ed Felt. Ed was very much a nice guy. He
was formerly of IBM. That was where he picked up the habit, I
suppose. The Labs were pretty casual but he always had a
starched-looking shirt and a tie.
You could always ask him a question and he would take the time to
give you a clear answer. Ed always had a cheerful disposition.
I cannot say I knew Ed really well. He was something of a friend.
Ed wrote an e-mail query tool that I used very effectively for
about ten years. It sort of became my secret weapon and
compensated for my bad memory. People would ask me questions and
Ed's tool would find me the old piece of email with the answer.
They would be amazed at the information I could produce and it was
really because I had Ed's tool.
I don't know if he was into scouting, but if he were he probably
would have gone to Eagle Scout. He just seemed that kind of
clean-cut idealist. If something needed to get done he was there
and had it done a few days early. He lived in the next town over
and he mentioned once or twice seeing Evelyn and me out driving.
He probably lived something like a mile or two away.
When he made Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and got a
private office, I moved into Ed's old seat. A few years ago Ed
left Bell Labs. I went to his going away lunch and then I don't
think I ever saw him again. Now that I think about it we did
exchange email on how to fine-tune his query tool.
I found out today that Ed died recently. It was the morning of
September 11th. A plane he was in piled into a mountain in
Pennsylvania. A group of people on the plane had taken back
control of the plane from some terrorists. The passengers gave up
their hope of survival so that other people would be safe. Ed was
on the plane. Was Ed one of the passengers who took the plane
back? I guess we will never know. Do I think it was something
Ed Felt might have done? Yeah. He was the type. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Ready. Aim. Fire. (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Over the last few years I have gotten a large number of pieces of
electronic chain mail. You know the kind of thing. One claims
there is a gang murdering people who flash their headlights at
them. Another says there is a new and dangerous computer virus.
Some want to save my soul. They all say to take this piece of
mail and forward it to other people. So essentially the message
itself is a computer virus because by using well-meaning people it
is replicated and sent to more and more people. The amazing thing
is that every single one has had a message that should not have
been sent. I guess for valid messages people have other channels.
Some are intended just to scare people like spooky stories around
an electronic campfire. Others may be well-intentioned but
misinformed. One warned about the excesses of the Taliban but
then had an electronic petition. Electronic petitions are useless
because anybody can sign a thousand names they get from the web.
If you get a piece of mail asking to be sent to other people, even
without reading it you can be pretty sure that whoever composed it
and whoever sent it to you and everybody in between is being
simply ignorant.
The most recent chain letter is an effort to get people to boycott
Amazon, the Internet book dealer. What is Amazon's offense?
There is a web page for the Intifada. On the web page at one
point it said, "You can buy books about the Intifada and Palestine
from Amazon.com. All profits from the referral will go to
developing Intifada.com." At first glance that looks pretty
shocking. Amazon is doing business with the Intifada. Let me be
the first to inform you that there were American companies that
did business with the September 11th terrorists. Did they have
dinner the night before? Somebody probably sold them that dinner.
If they rented rooms to sleep in some American probably made money
off of terrorism. Did these people know they were dealing with
terrorists? Almost certainly they do not. Could Amazon have been
funding the Intifada page innocently without knowing whom they
were dealing with? They not only could have been innocent, they
almost certainly were.
Here is the deal. Amazon has an automated scheme for paying
commission for customer referrals. People who want to use the
system log onto Amazon and register a name and address where
proceeds should be sent. In return they get a code number. They
then set up a link from their web page to Amazon and embed that
number as part of the URL. The number and name and address are
automatically placed into a table at Amazon's end. The whole
process of setting up an existing web page to make money from
Amazon takes about five minutes. They do no checking to be sure
the name and address belong to someone good and wholesome and
having the right political beliefs. How could they? The chain
mail starts out "This was sent to me by our Nashville Hadassah
President. For those of you not familiar with Hadassah it's a
Jewish women's charity organization." The authors of the chain
letter use Hadassah's name to lend credence. Ironically a quick
check with a search engine tells me out that another organization
with a moneymaking Amazon link is the Central Pacific Coast Region
of Hadassah. Amazon is not discriminating in favor of Arab
organizations nor is it discriminating against them. And, in
fact, they have turned off the commission agreement with the
Intifada. Still they are being criticized apparently for not
shutting it off before it started.
I have no respect whatsoever for the Intifada, but boycotting the
innocent Amazon is not going to do any good. It will only
demonstrate to the world that we are lashing out in blind anger at
anybody within range regardless of guilt or innocence. The
approach is one of "Ready. Fire. Aim."
This situation will remind some people of the case of Dr. Samuel
Mudd. Mudd was the doctor who, awakened at 4 AM, set the broken
leg of a man he did not recognize. The man was John Wilkes Booth
who the previous evening had murdered Abraham Lincoln. In the
hysteria after the murder the law struck out at him because he
merely had been convenient to the criminal. Mudd spent nearly
four years imprisoned in the Dry Tortugas before he received not
exoneration but a pardon. In times of public hysteria there is a
danger that we will lash out with more anger than reason.
The country is obviously angry because of what happened September
11th. We should be. Striking out at Amazon because they happened
to be convenient in some very minor way to the Intifada is not
going to help anyone. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Movie Trailers--Millennium Philcon (film comment by Mark
R. Leeper)
The World Science Fiction Convention's annual presentation of
upcoming films has devolved into a presentation that is mostly
just a string of trailers for the films. It is really tough to
tell how good films are from the trailers. I have become cynical
about the films shown in these presentations. And while I was
absolutely right about some films such as BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 2, I
would be less than honest if I did not say that at least two
excellent films when previewed looked like they would not be worth
seeing. GATTACA, the best science fiction film of the 1990s
looked from the trailer like a bad made-for-TV distopia. REQUIEM
FOR A DREAM, which previewed like an incoherent mess, was a very
fine film also. This report is doubly removed from reality since
it is based on the trailers and not the films themselves and
further it is only my impressions from the trailers.
Two positive trends are noted. First overall the films look
better this year than they have in previous years. A lot of these
films I have some interest in seeing. The second not entirely
unrelated trend is that while the film industry used to shy away
from films set in historical eras under the assumption that
schools were not doing a good job in teaching history. This year
there seem to be four or five historical films. I hope they do
well.
Now to my comments on the trailers.
1. PLUTO NASH stars Eddie Murphy in a comedy crime film set on
what appears to be the moon. The idea, if that is the idea, has
been done before as a nearly missing film, MOON ZERO TWO. That
was not a great film, but this does not look a whole lot better.
It look not so much like a space movie starring Eddie Murphy as an
Eddie Murphy movie set in space.
2. ROLLERBALL is a remake of Norman Jewison's film based on a
story by William Harrison. The original film mixed sports,
violence, a view of the future, and introspection. The latter two
are not obvious in the trailer of the new film. It has some
familiar actors including Jean Reno. I am not fond of sports
films, but it deserves a chance.
3. SHALLOW HAL is a trailer I have already seen in the theaters.
Jack Black plays the main character. The plot is the story of a
man who wants to date only beautiful women. Under hypnosis he is
made to believe that even unattractive women are attractive. He
falls for a grossly fat woman whom he sees as Gweneth Paltrow.
The trailer has scenes that shows how fat the woman is, then we
see it from the main character's eyes and it is Gweneth Paltrow
who is making the huge splash in the pool. The film looks like a
compendium of tasteless fat jokes simply being filmed with
Paltrow. Curiously in a film industry that likes to use younger
stars, an older man, perhaps older than would be dating, is cast
as the disagreeable lead. Why insult the ticket-buying
demographic? That is the bad news. The good news is that showing
surprisingly more taste than the filmmakers did the audience booed
the film. Perhaps mean-spirited, poorly written comedies are
losing favor. I hope this film is not as bad as the trailer makes
it look, but there is little reason for hope.
4. Recently we saw a fairly interesting update of an old low
budget William Castle horror film, THE HOUSE ON THE HAUNTED HILL.
That formula continues with the creaky classic 13 GHOSTS.
F. Murray Abraham dies leaving a strange futuristic haunted house
to some younger (presumably) relatives. If you have to remake an
existing film, this is the way to do it. I cannot believe anyone
has much fondness for the original. The first version was really
just an exploitation film to show another use of red and green
cellophane. You had a ghost viewer so you could see or not see
the ghosts. Of course that is the kind of film that should be
remade, not a CASABLANCA that so many people love.
5. AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE seems to be a stylish film set in the
late 19th century. It is hard to tell a lot from the trailer, but
a film that works so hard to create the period probably will show
care in other aspects.
6. HEARTS IN ATLANTIS stars Anthony Hopkins in a Stephen King
story with a light tinge of fantasy. Hopkins appears to be a
psychic who comes to live in a boarding house and forms a
relationship with a young boy. Hard to say, but the film appears
to take place at least a few years in the past. Word from film
critic Dan Kimmel is that Hopkins is better than the rest of the
film, though in my experience Kimmel tends to be less fond of
sentiment than I am. [Previewed at Toronto: Not too bad a film.]
7. The next trailer seems to be telling the story of a young man
in early 19th Century France. The dialog calls him Edmund Dantes
and I let out an involuntary "Ah" of approval. The man is treated
grossly unjustly and thrown into prison over circumstantial
evidence. Of course he will spend years in prison only to escape,
find a fabulous fortune, and seeking revenge return to France as
his alter-ego THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. The Alexander Dumas
classic was due for a remake. It has been done for TV, but I do
not know of a theatrical version since the old Robert Donat
version. This version seems to play up his sword skills to add
some visual excitement. This one I am looking forward to.
8. MONSTERS, INC is a Pixar animated film whose trailer is already
in theaters. There is a good reason monsters hide under the bed.
They are as afraid of humans as humans are of them. Monsters have
there own world and one day a little girl crosses over. The film
looks charming. Billy Crystal, John Goodman, and James Coburn
lend their voices.
9. BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF looks like a very intriguing French
horror film set in the 18th century. The countryside is up in
arms about some sort of wolf-like monster making life difficult
for the local populace. It may resolve to a werewolf film or may
be something better. [Previewed at Toronto; familiar story, good
period look sabotaged by anachronistic martial arts and 20th
Century political attitudes. Disappointing in the long run.]
10. "Smallville", while it was not made clear here, is a TV
series, not a film. It is about a humanoid from outer space sent
to Earth by spaceship as a child. The boy, Clark Kent, is growing
up not knowing who he really is and keeping to himself the fact he
seems to be acquiring special powers including indestructibility.
A lot of his problems are ones that any teenager might have. Some
are unique to him. At least in the trailer there is no mention of
the future we know he will have. (Nod, nod. Wink, wink.) It
does sound like it will have more human values, perhaps like
Buffy.
11. Next was a small piece on a theatrical film network film based
on POWERPUFF GIRLS, the TV series on the Cartoon Network. It does
not look like very good animation.
12. Another Alexander Dumas story is THE MUSKETEER. This is an
adaptation of the frequently film adapted THE THREE MUSKETEERS.
The period seems almost stylishly recreated but the photography is
dark. Perhaps inspired by CROUCHING TIGER, the athletic seem to
be assisted by an excess of not very believable wirework.
Probably not very good. [By now it has been released and has
gotten very, very bad reviews.]
13. THE SCORPIOM KING is the origin of the character we saw in THE
MUMMY RETURNS. Not a lot can be told from the trailer, but the
style seems to be borrowed from CONAN THE BARBARIAN. That could
be worse. The character certainly did not look that good in THE
MUMMY RETURNS. Still the audience seemed unimpressed by the
trailer and hissing was heard.
14. The audience was much more pleased by the trailer for BC. We
could not tell a lot about the movie, but what we saw was a
sequence featuring a squirrel on an ice field trying to bury an
acorn and causing himself a great deal of trouble in the process.
The film is done in 3D animation. Whether BC is from the comic
strip "Hey, BC" or if it is just some other story set in
prehistoric times is not clear.
15. FROM HELL stars Heather Graham and Johnny Depp. The style
seems similar to that of SLEEPY HOLLOW. This film takes place in
London and is the story of a detective tracking Jack the Ripper.
It is said to have an authentic recreation of the original murder
sites. Stage sets were made on a scale unmatched since the Golden
Years of Hollywood. It also claims to be a new way of looking at
the Jack the Ripper case.
16. In THE ONE with something like 123 counts of murder, a killer
(played by Jet Li) goes from one parallel universe to the next (as
in the TV show "Sliders") killing people. Our universe's version
of this person (also played by Jet Li) decides to stop him. Again
the action is enhanced and made less believable with an excess of
wirework. Delroy Lindo co-stars.
17. This coming attraction is a teaser showing a bank robbery
filmed to reasonable action film standards. The robbers escape by
helicopter. As the helicopter weaves its way among buildings
suddenly it stops still in air. Then it seems to be bouncing
around in air. It has been caught in a giant spider web. Cut to
the title SPIDERMAN. We see one side of the head of Spiderman
with a big dewy green eye. Now did Spiderman figure their route,
get ahead of them and spin his web in time to catch them? Did I
miss something? Was he also bitten by a radioactive version of
The Flash? People were making a big fuss over this, but it does
not look that good.
18. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCEROR'S STONE looks like it has nice
art and production design. It features actors like Maggie Smith
and John Hurt. It looks like it recreates the look of a British
boarding school very nicely. You can tell that a lot of care is
going into the production. Chris Columbus will direct.
19. As the capper of the previews is a trailer for Peter Jackson's
production of J. R. R. Tolkein's THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This
looks like a beautiful production up to some of the best artwork
that has been used to illustrate the classic fantasy. Jackson
will do the trilogy as three films.
The trailers were followed by a question and answer period with
presenter Jeff Walker. The following are among the facts gleaned.
These should be regarded as strong rumors:
-- MATRIX 2 will be released soon.
-- 2001 and E.T. will get re-releases. E.T. will be in a special
enhanced edition.
-- A title has been announced for the next STAR WARS film. It
will be STAR WARS 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES.
-- A live action SCOOBY DOO film is coming.
-- A new SUPERMAN is under development
-- A FANTASTIC FOUR film is in the works
-- An Elfquest film is being developed
-- X-MEN 2 is being made with new mutants. The world needs some
more new mutants, I guess.
-- PERN, a TV series based on the Anne McCaffrey novels, was in
the works but the plug was pulled by Warner Brothers TV and is
looking for new venue.
-- QUEEN OF THE DAMNED by Anne Rice is coming.
-- A HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY MOVIE is tied up since author
Douglas Adams died. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Romantic Comedies from the Toronto International Film
Festival (Film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)
The Toronto Festival is a ten-day event. This year the halfway
point was the morning of September 11. The events of that morning
caused a sort of re-evaluation of what we had already seen and it
certainly cast a sort of pall over what we were about to see.
Every film after that point that a filmmaker presented--about half
the films are presented by the people who made them--was described
as somehow tied into the political situation. Mira Nair presented
the first film we saw after the attack, MONSOON WEDDING. She said
she was glad that for these times she had made a life-affirming
film. Whether it was a particularly good film or a particularly
bad film for the time is hard to judge. But particularly for
comedies the mood you are in when you see them is all-important.
Romantic comedies in particular are going to be hard to
appreciate. These films were all seen after the events but for
KISSING JESSICA STEIN. That film may be particularly hard hit
since it takes place in Manhattan and apparently many of the
external shot showed the World Trade Center in the distance. It
should be noted that MONSOON WEDDING was voted in second or third
place as the most popular film of the entire festival.
SERENDIPITY
CAPSULE: Familiar-feeling romantic comedy from director Peter
Chelsom. Two people meet, like each other, and leave to fate if
they should meet again. Years later each decides they should be
together and start searching for each other with very standard
sorts of results. Fluffy and a lot like things you have seen
before. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
A few years ago there was a light romantic comedy called THE NIGHT
WE NEVER MET. The point of that film was that two people whom the
viewer knows are fated to find each other keep missing each other
by inches. SERENDIPITY is a reworking of that idea. It is a
story of Fate working overtime to have its two main characters
meet. Each time the dramatic tension is greater and each time it
is another near miss.
In a prolog Jonathan Trager (played by John Cusack) and Sara
Thomas (the attractive Kate Beckinsale of PEARL HARBOR) meet in
Bloomingdales when each wants to buy the same pair of gloves.
There is immediate attraction, but each goes his own way. Then
the two come together again. Is it fate that is bringing them
together? Sara suggests they test it. She writes her name and
address in a book, Jonathan writes his name on the back of a five-
dollar bill. Sara sells the book Jonathan spends the bill. Will
fate bring them back together? Flash forward a few years and both
are making plans to be married but neither is totally happy with
his intended. Each remembers the one that got away. Each decides
to give fate another chance.
Marc Klein's screenplay gives us a pleasurable and amusing froth
of a romantic comedy, if a little too predictable and undemanding
to plot. It is easy enough to come up with any number of
situations in which people just barely miss each other. That
builds a tension of sorts, but the audience has strong
expectations how it will all turn out. The viewer knows fate
rules the lives of the characters since in this case the hand of
fate is Marc Klein.
Few of the attempts at style or humor work. Eugene Levy plays
officious clerk who is more irritating than funny. Worse to
create a romantic effect director Peter Chelsom has not just music
but songs on the music track. Notable is a cameo role for Buck
Henry. There are also several opportunities to fit in the ever-
popular New York City landmarks.
This is a lighthearted and frivolous romantic comedy that will not
have a lot of appeal beyond audiences specifically looking that
sort of film. In other words, though it is a cliche, this is a
film for people who like this sort of thing. I rate it a 5 on the
0 to 10 scale and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
MONSOON WEDDING
CAPSULE: The Verma family is having a wedding and all the
relatives will come for the multi-day festivities. Mira Nair's
film is pleasant enough with a little human drama, a few family
secrets, some sadness and some happiness. You have seen it all
before, but perhaps not from India. The photography is colorful
and the music is very agreeable. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4
to +4)
Mira Nair previously directed SALAAM BOMBAY and MISSISSIPPI
MASALA. Her newest film, written by Sabrina Dhawan, is very
similar to previous films like BETSY'S WEDDING but it is set in
New Delhi. A wealthy family is having a wedding. An Indian
wedding is a multi-day affair as much a family reunion as a
nuptial. Even more than in the US, it is an excuse for a lavish
and extravagant family get-together. The film shows us what the
family does together and at the same time follows several family
members' individual story lines. Aditi Verma is marrying Hemant,
an Indian engineer working in the US. She had previously had a
relationship with Vikram, her supervisor. Latit, her father
(played by Naseeruddin Shah), is juggling many problems, not the
least of which is worrying about the caterer has hired PK Dubey.
Dubey is a rather eccentric man with a taste for eating the
marigolds he uses for decoration. Even Dubey will soon be
romantically entangled when he becomes interested in Alice, one of
the family servants. Several family members arrive giving rise to
several plotlines involving sex, family secrets, or both. There
are heartbreaks and there are people falling in love. Some of the
subjects covered are probably near taboo for Indian films.
Western audiences will appreciate a look at unfamiliar Indian
customs like women painting their hands with henna. On the other
hand it was not clear (to me at least) if scenes like the family
singing together are typical of Indian culture or if they are a
convention of Indian musical films. This seems a particularly
Westernized family with the father wearing American designer
sweaters and the family speaking mostly English. The latter will,
however, help with an international release.
Sabrina Dhawan's screenplay is vibrant with witty dialog. We have
seen films with plotting very much like this, but the Indian
setting makes a great deal of difference. Director Mira Nair
calls the film an affirmation of life. I rate it a 7 on the 0 to
10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
KISSING JESSICA STEIN
CAPSULE: The plot is familiar but the writing is usually fresh,
funny, and at times moving. Why can't Jessica find a nice guy?
Is it because she is seeing a nice, and smart, girl? Heather
Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt wrote and star in the film based
on their own play chronicling the ups and downs of a straight
woman who meets the bisexual Ms. Right. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1
(-4 to +4)
This is in many ways a fairly prosaic romantic comedy made only
slightly less familiar by involving a straight woman who falls
into a lesbian relationship. Many of the touches and certainly
most of the plot twists are things we have seen before. Jessica
Stein (played by Jennifer Westfeldt) is a self-assured, successful
young woman in the New York publishing trade. The one hole in her
lifestyle is her dysfunctional love life. Jessica is having a
really hard time meeting the right man. Her mother (Tovah
Feldshuh) is hoping she will meet the right Jewish guy. She goes
from dating one man to the next and they are all losers in one way
or another and generally not Jessica's intellectual equal. Then
she reads a personals ad quoting Rainer Maria Rilke. Whoever
placed this ad clearly has a brain. Unfortunately it is a woman
seeking another woman, not at all what Jessica has in mind. Just
curious to meet the woman who would place such an ad Jessica
agrees to meet Helen Cooper (Heather Juergensen) with predictable
results.
The screenplay is written by the two lead actresses based on their
play "Lipschtick." As new writers they bring some fresh new
writing to the film but for the rest they rely on cliche we have
seen too frequently before. To show the losers that Jessica has
been dating they have a montage of dates' faces, each saying
something stupid. I saw that for the first time in SHE'S GOTTA
HAVE IT, but certainly not the last time. Men in small roles in
the film are frequently stupid and the contemporary equivalents of
Stepin Fetchit. On the other hand an office friend, Hannah Levine
(not listed in any credits I can find) adds some real life to the
film. She seems to be a graduate of the Thelma Ritter School of
Acting. Frequently the writing is fresh as when Jessica is naive
about the mechanics of lesbian sex and Helen has to explain it.
Charles Herman-Wurmfeld directs. This is not an outstanding film,
but certainly parts of it work very well. I rate it a 6 on the 0
to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
THE ART OF WOO
CAPSULE: This is an attempt at writing a modern fairy tale.
Alyssa Wong is a successful art expert who has to decide if she
wants to marry for money or for love. The story calls for a woman
with Audrey Hepburn charm and Sook-Yin Lee does not fill the bill.
The film is contrived and dissatisfying. Rating: 3 (0 to 10), -1
(-4 to +4)
THE ART OF WOO attempts to be one of those films like BREAKFAST AT
TIFFANY'S in which the audience is rooting for some sweet,
vulnerable, irresistible woman to work out her problems and to
find happiness. The problem is that Helen Lee who writes and
directs seems to have written Alessa Woo (played by Sook-Yin Lee)
as neither sweet nor vulnerable and she is quite resistible.
Alessa is a young woman who happens to be a brilliant art dealer
in the Toronto art scene. This is some sort of alternate world
art scene where people pay tens of thousands of dollars for
paintings by talented beginners and dealers in these paintings fly
back and forth to places like Switzerland. One of the most
knowledgeable of the art dealers is Alessa. She also happens to
be the center of adulation of her friends and every party has
suitors camped outside her window.
Next door to Alessa moves struggling genius artist and Native
American Ben Crowchild (Adam Beach). He sees that behind the
facade that there is really a sad little girl within Alessa who
really will not be happy with the rich art collector she is
dating. Ben gets emotionally involved with Alessa. (As Alessa so
delicately puts it, "We were bosom buddies, now we're fuck
buddies.") But Alessa will have to decide whether she wants love
with Ben or wealth with her rich suitor.
The real problem with the film seems to be Helen Lee's inability
to decide what she wants to be saying. She undercuts nearly
everything she wants us to believe about Alessa. Alessa is
looking for financial security but she makes decisions about large
sums of money for her clients. This appears to be a high profile
and well-paid job. We are supposed to care about Alessa's
feelings, but she coldly refuses to visit her own ailing father.
Alessa cannot be portrayed as sweet and vulnerable if at an art
auction she turns into OUR MAN FLINT.
This is a charmless romantic comedy that bets everything it has on
the appeal of its main character and comes up double-zero. I rate
it a 3 on the 0 to 10 scale and a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
JALLA! JALLA!
CAPSULE: This super-light situation comedy from Sweden tells the
story of two close friends with romantic problems. The script
involves formerly taboo subjects like erotic toys and sexual
enhancers but otherwise the writing is not a lot different from
what is shown free on television. The characters are paper-thin
and the interesting ideas purely non-existent. This is a
decrement-life-by-90-minutes card. Rating: 4 (0 to 10), 0 (-4 to
+4)
JALLA! JALLA! is basically an exuberant TV situation comedy
written instead for the wide screen. It tells the story of two
park custodians and the problems they are finding on the path to
true love. The film is set in Sweden where Roro and Mans (Fares
Fares and Torkel Petersson) are custodians at a public park. Roro
is from a tightly knit Lebanese family who control him very
closely, Mans is a Swede from a much more liberal background.
They spend most of the day in the bushes at their park, cleaning
up after dogs. Roro and Mans each have girlfriends, but each has
a problem. Roro (nicknamed "Jalla") is having family problems.
It seems that his family wants to arrange a marriage between him
and a nice Lebanese woman, Yasmin (Laleh Pourkarim), but he is
already in love with Lisa (Tuva Novotny). Yasmin likes Roro, but
does not want to get married either. Mans on the other hand has
been having a problem of sexual impotence. The two friends worry
about their problems and discuss the problems with each other.
Mans thinks the answer to his problem is to purchase sexual
enhancers. The one catch is that he is too shy to go in and buy
them. Roro and Yasmin decide to give themselves some time by
telling the families that they want to marry each other, but then
plan to break up before the wedding. Not too surprisingly neither
finds that his idea works out the way he quite expected.
The plot turns in several places are contrived. One knows fairly
quickly that if things are going to work our happily for everybody
certain plot contrivances have to happen. Lebanese-born Josef
Fares who wrote and directed is perhaps a better director than he
is a writer. When things start to get slow, he just adds throws
in another story. For example halfway into the film Mans
innocently antagonizes some local toughs and a long chase is added
to the film. Characterization is a little better with Roro than
it is with Mans who does not seem to have a whole lot more
personality beyond fear for losing a biological function. We do
see some of Roro's family life and his concerns. That may be
because Roro's background is a lot like that of the director.
While the story was entertaining, I did not feel that I got
anything worthwhile from the film. It was just a way to pass
about an hour and a half in my life. One does not have to go to
the movies to see entertainment like this. I rate it a 4 on the 0
to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Bores bore each other too, but it never seems to teach
them anything.
--Don Marquis
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