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Indie Flix
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 24, 2001
Movies in limited release:
Courageous at its center
The Center of the World (NR, probably NC-17) (86 min.) -- Director Wayne Wang's frankness in dealing with sex, a subject filmmakers typically cheapen, can fool viewers into thinking his latest film is more important than it is. That's the fault of Hollywood rather than Wang. The Center of the World is compelling, even erotic, like venturing into a strip club for the first time.
Wang has essentially updated Last Tango in Paris with more precise reasons to pity its lonely characters. Sex isn't a weapon but the common thread between two people who wouldn't meet under anything but prurient circumstances. Yet, sex has two different meanings for them, and neither outlook is typical for the movies.
Florence (Molly Parker) is an exotic dancer who stops short of prostitution. Sex isn't a way of life, but of making a living. The last thing she needs is a customer like Richard (Peter Sarsgaard, above with Parker), with a crush. The first thing she needs, though, is the $10,000 he offers her to spend a weekend in Las Vegas. Strict ground rules, including no intercourse, don't faze Richard.
An intriguing grapple of emotions ensues as Florence and Richard vainly try to preserve their agreement. Sex is inevitable, but Wang keeps us puzzled about the feelings that will finally make it happen. This isn't an easy segue from bickering to bed that mainstream films typically portray. This couple may require hatred before they do it, so where does that leave the concept of "making love" ?
Parker and Sarsgaard are perfectly conflicted, with small gestures suggesting what their characters are scrambling to think. The only other role of any dimension is Carla Gugino (Spy Kids) as a stripper more desperate than Florence. Her two painfully degrading scenes bring a necessary fire to Wang's film after all that solemn repression.
The Center of the World doesn't sustain the passion of its first hour, and Wang's finale exposes his lack of answers for such impressive dilemmas. But its gritty home video look, strong performances and courage to make us uncomfortable make The Center of the World worthwhile for art house audiences.
Opens Friday at Tampa Theatre. B+
A grand IMAX journey
Journey Into Amazing Caves (NR, probably G) (42 min.) -- The latest IMAX thrill ride reaches into inner space, under the earth's surface, where scientists search for extremophiles, microorganisms preserved for centuries that could someday unlock medical cures.
Two of those adventurous cavers are Dr. Hazel Barton and Nancy Aulenbach, tracked by MacGillivray Freeman Films as they descend into caves in frigid Greenland, Mayan ruins in Mexico and Arizona limestone. Barton and Aulenbach are easy to cheer: spunky, resourceful, intrepid and caring enough to keep an elementary school science class abreast of their work via the Internet.
The sights are breathtaking: underwater Yucatan peninsula caves where Barton must remove her air tanks to squeeze through tight spots, icy walls too brittle to entirely trust, and grand stalactites and stalagmites shaped by centuries of erosion and shifting terra firma.
IMAX is the safest way to share these experiences, and the curved screen of the domed theater at Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry makes a viewer feel part of the expedition. Journey Into Amazing Caves is the most visceral, thrilling IMAX endeavor since Everest. The film will be presented in rotation with other IMAX offerings through Nov. 15.
Journey Into Amazing Caves utilizes the Museum of Science and Industry's new MoPix System, providing deaf viewers with their own rear projection dialogue captions to read and blind IMAX visitors with descriptive narration through headsets. Read more about the process in Friday's Floridian section. The movie and the MoPix System are both grade A.
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