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Indie Flix
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 5, 2001
Movies in limited release
IMAX rocks
All Access: Front Row. Backstage. Live! (Not rated) (60 min.) -- IMAX cameras have captured the world's fiercest forces of nature, but nothing like the raw energy of Kid Rock and George Clinton's sideshow of funk. Those ferocious performances, plus IMAX's immense sound and projection qualities, make All Access a must-see experience.
Channelside 9 needs all 40 speakers in its 14,000-watt audio system to harness the power. A screen five stories high and 71 feet wide brings viewers closer to their rock idols than ever. The promise of the Rolling Stones' IMAX film from a few years ago is finally realized, a movie about music as large as the music itself. (Note: All Access is presented in 2-D, not the theater's 3-D screen.)
Check out this lineup: Sting (Desert Rose), Carlos Santana and Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas (Smooth), Macy Gray (I Can't Wait to Meet You), Moby, Sheryl Crow (If It Makes You Feel Better), plus dynamic collaborations between B.B. King and Trey Anasatasio from Phish, Al Green and the Dave Matthews Band and the glorious pandemonium of Clinton's menagerie jamming with Mary J. Blige in a medley of Parliament/Funkadelic hits.
Each performance is a thriller, filmed in a variety of venues, from a packed Soldier Field in Chicago to Crow's solo acoustic turn. Between songs, the artists ramble about their musical influences and how much they admire each other. The only message is an unspoken claim of inclusiveness as musicians of all ages, colors and genres locate common ground. All Access doesn't break any new ground, but the vast landscape is breathtaking.
Opens Friday at Channelside 9 in Tampa only. A
Cheating the executioner
The Widow of St. Pierre (R) (112 min.) -- Juliette Binoche, above, (Chocolat) plays Pauline, living in 19th-century Newfoundland with her husband (Daniel Auteuil), known only as "the Captain." Yet, his dashing airs don't prevent her from becoming perhaps a bit too interested in Auguste, who has been convicted of murder (Yugoslavian filmmaker Emil Kusturica).
Obviously, Auguste was railroaded into his date with the guillotine. Pauline sees something in his demeanor worth redeeming. While the prisoner awaits the arrival of his executioner, she takes him into her home, teaches him how to garden and read, beginning his rehabilitation in the community. By the time the sentence is to be carried out, Auguste is a local hero.
Leconte (Ridicule, Girl of the Bridge) coaxes sensual, vibrant performances from his cast and shrouds The Widow of St. Pierre in moody fogs and shimmering daylight. The script by Claude Faraldo, however, turns preachy about capital punishment and almost silly in depicting Auguste's unlikely popularity. There is something refreshingly old-fashioned about its melodramatic elements, but this film is for only the heartiest fans of French cinema.
Opens Friday at Tampa Theatre. Scheduled to open next week at Beach Theater in St. Pete Beach. B+
Beauty amid squalor
Ratcatcher (Not rated) (93 min.) -- A young Scottish boy named James (William Eadie) lives in a Glasgow slum during a garbage strike, occupying his days with futile daydreams, sexual experimentation and a death that will haunt him forever.
New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell declared Ratcatcher "a gorgeous blend of beauty and squalor, packed with imagery that will play over and over in your head for weeks. . . . Although it flirts with misery, and its palette is principally a series of glum earth tones with an occasional vivid splash of color, the (film) provides an intimacy that is completely mesmerizing. Rarely has physical wretchedness been rendered with such delicacy."
Opens Friday at Channelside 9 in Tampa.
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