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| Black Cat, White Cat |
OCTOBER FILMS
Black Cat, White Cat
Bosnian-born writer/director Emir Kusturica brings us some long-awaited humor from the Balkans with this story about a group of gypsies who live on the banks of the Danube River. Grga Pitic and Zarije Destanov are octogenarian friends (and rivals) who have had their fates yoked together once Matko Destanov, Grga's low-life son, engineers a train heist that goes awry. Double-crossed into debt, Matko is obliged to force his son into an arranged marriage. Grga and Zarije are reconnected as their families and friends cope with betrayals, lust, parties, death, some rousing gypsy music, pigs, geese-and the pursuit of true love and true friendship.
PARAMOUNT CLASSICS
The Powder Keg
Veteran Yugoslav director Goran Paskaljevic's latest film concerns a cast of characters whose lives cross during the dawn of an awakening political consciousness. They include: a former Sarajevo professor who is too proud to work for the new refugee mobsters and instead drives a bus; a boxer who discovers the extent to which his life has been a facade and seeks revenge on his best friend in an act of desperate retaliation; a young woman who, harassed during a bus hijacking, ends up safely in the arms of her boyfriend, only to find their lovers' quarrel has put them into a dangerous situation. These disparate voices connect one evening in a story about the nature of guilt and responsibility. The Powder Keg received a 10-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival and broke box-office records in both Sarajevo and Belgrade, a rare moment of agreement between the two cities.
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| The Powder Keg |
Get Real
Adapted from Patrick Wilde's play "What's Wrong With Angry?," Get Real concerns the awkwardness of adolescence seen through the trials of one gay teen's coming out process. Says director Simon Shore," The play showed what it was like to be 16 years old, gay, and living in a provincial town, but by putting it into a familiar context of everyone's adolescence, Patrick wrote a story that everyone could identify with:' The picture focuses on Steven Carter, an introspective student whose inner sexual desires are about the high school jock, John Dixon. Carter's only confidante in such matters of the heart is Linda, the girl next door who is on her 48th driving lesson in the hopes of one day getting her way with driving instructor Bob. Steven's best friend is Mark, who is trying to win the attention of Wendy, the feisty new editor of the school magazine. At the school commencement, where Steven is to receive an award for his essay on "growing up as we approach the new millennium," the time for intrigue and evasion has come to an end, and Steven must become the conscience of them all.
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| Beefcake |
STRAND
Beefcake
When Britain's Channel 4 asked Writer/Director Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden) to conjure a pic about gays and muscles, he thought of one of the first magazines in the U.S. to push the line over what was considered lewd photography in the 1950s. Photographer Bob Mizer's Physique Pictorial magazine showed men in posing straps in fantasy layouts (sailors, gladiators, wrestlers) and is tame by today's standards. But Mizer went to jail for obscenity before the laws were changed to allow erotic male photography. In making the film, Fitzgerald chose to highlight the sexual motives of those involved, and he injected a lighthearted, campy feel along the way. "Mizer probably wouldn't think of his life as a Frankie and Annette movie," says Fitzgerald, laughing. The Hollywood pool scenes weren't easy to shoot, either, since most of the film was made in Nova Scotia in the dead of winter. Thank God for sound stages.
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| Head On |
Head On
Following its impressive premiere at Cannes in 1998, Head On received nine Australian Film Institute Award normnations, including: Best Picture, Best Actor for Alex Dimitriades and Best Director for Ana Kokkinos in her first feature. The picture centers on the clash between old Greek family values and a young, closeted gay man named Ari who makes an intense search for identity while trying to retain his parents' love and respect. Ari's ability to participate in the rituals of his Greek ancestry one moment, while angrily rebelling against them the next, makes it clear he's caught between the mores of his close-knit family and the liberating forces of end-of-the-millennium Australian society.
WINSTAR CINEMA
On The Ropes
In her first feature-length documentary, director Nanette Burstein enters a boxing gym in New York City's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. She tells four stories: three belong to boxers preparing for a bout and another to their trainer, Harry Keitt. Each fighter transcends the typical coach-athlete relationship. Tyrene is the young female protégé; Noel is Keitt's obligation; George is the elusive ticket to success he has been searching for. Along the way to the big event, the 1997 Golden Gloves Tournament, the fighters and their trainer must contend with school, drugs and court dates. The filmmakers followed the four through a year of training in what turned out to be a crucial time in their lives.
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| On the Ropes |
LIONS GATE
All The Little Animals
At its simplest, says Producer/Director Jeremy Thomas, All The Little Animals is a battle between good and evil, a coming-of-age movie in which an orphaned boy faces dispossession and death at the hands of his stepfather. His escape from imprisonment, his flight into the wild, and his eventual revenge are the stuff of classical thriller and chase movies. The boy is hunted, and in escaping and avenging himself, he becomes a man. In the 20 years since the novel upon which the film is based first appeared, its themes have gained in relevance. "The growth of environmental and animal rights issues in the past decade," explains Thomas, has been paralleled by the rebirth of alternative culture amongst the younger generation, from the Travelers' in Britain to the grunge generation in the United States." All the Little Animals stars John Hurt and Christian Bale.
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| Earth |
ZEITGEIST FILMS
Earth
Set in pre-partition India in 1947, Deepa Mehta's film centers on a genteel family caught amidst the deepening crisis of Indian independence. As the British empire falls, Lenny, an 8-year-old Parsee girl, is playing with her attractive Hindu nanny in a Lahore park. Lenny's world is an entirely mixed one peopled by her beloved nanny, Ayah, her precocious cousin, Adi, the genial cook, the ice candy man and the masseur who invents oils made from pearl dust and fish eggs. As violence encroaches and the family retreats to its compound, Lenny and her relatives are spared from the slaughter because they are deemed neutral. But a Muslim mob arrives at their front gate and demands all the Hindu servants, which includes Ayah. As for the production itself, since no co-production treaty exists between India and Canada, Earth could not be recognized as an official co-production, despite more than half the financing and a majority of the key crewmembers being Canadian. Of shooting a period piece in present-day Lahore, Mehra says `Just to dress TV antennas became a mammoth task, let alone the hundreds of roof-top water tanks. Gardens had to be designed and built and extensive brickwork laid to create the look of 1947 Lahore.
FOX SEARCHLIGHT
Whiteboys
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| Whiteboys |
Flip and his fellow teenage pals Trevor, James and college-bound girlfriend, Sara, drink 40-ouncers, smoke Philly blunts, cruise around in James's truck and aspire to be gangsta rappers. There's just a few issues: These kids are white and they live in Iowa. Then they meet Khalid, an upper class black kid recently transplanted from Chicago. When Flip gets him out of a run-in with the law, Khalid agrees to return the favor by taking Flip to Chicago so he can live out his gangsta dream. Directed by Marc Levin, whose previous film, Slam, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Camera D'Or at Cannes in 1998.
Man of the Century
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| Joe The King |
With some of the best-known one-liners of the past 80 years, Man of the Century is good for a few chuckles. An audience-pleasing mix of fantasy and physical comedy, the movie's one joke premise is that a guy named Johnny Twennies, living in modern-day Manhattan and working as a reporter for the ghostly Sun-Telegram newspaper, actually believes he's living in the 1920s. Director Adam Abraham shows a technical flair, but the film's highlight is the spot-on staccato delivery of lead Gibson Frazier. In stark black and white, surrounded by a distinctly NewYork winter, Twennies gets to say things like "Nobody's gonna play me like a sucker, see?" and "Ya gotta like the kid's moxie"With a surprisingly original script and strong performances all-around, this droll mixture of "Twilight Zone" and slapstick should score with art house audiences looking for some "good, clean fun." Don't believe it? Well, as Twennies would say, "Scram, ya ten cent glamour girl."
Joe The King
In his directorial debut, actor Frank Whaley's picture is set in an upstate NewYork town in the late 1970s. Fourteen-year-old Joe Henry (Noah Fleiss) is a kid who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. His abusive father, Bob (Val Kilmer) hasn't held down a job in years, and is in debt to everyone in town, including Joe's teachers. With no allowance and perpetually clad in hand-me-downs, Joe is forced to work illegally after school at a local greasy spoon. He brings home a small paycheck as well as leftover food, which he gives to his older brother. Joe's mother, Theresa (Karen Young) is seldom around. When she is, she shuts herself in her room seeking emotional solace from her cherished collection of Johnny Ray albums. Also stars Ethan Hawke, Camryn Manheim, Austin Pendleton and John Leguizamo. MM