Lots of calories, little substance

By STEVE PERSALL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 9, 2001

NEW RELEASES

[Photo: Miramax]

Juilette Binoche casts a sugary spell on a conservative French village in Chocolat.

Chocolat

(PG-13) A conservative French village gets outraged when a stranger named Vianne (Juliette Binoche) opens a tempting candy store in the midst of Lent. The dastardly mayor (Alfred Molina) wants to run Vianne out of town while a smooth-talking gypsy (Johnny Depp) woos her.

First impressions: "Chocolat is a trifle about truffles that once again proves the way to anyone's heart is through his or her stomach. Yet, Lasse Hallstrom's film is merely another course after a lengthy menu of better films on the subject. . . .

"Nothing seems to be at stake here. Vianne and daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) never reveal an agenda for their sudden appearance in town. The mayor's motivation to control is obvious from his first appearance. A late revelation of hypocrisy isn't surprising or devastating enough. It's a battle of wills neither side appears to be overly concerned about."

Second thoughts: Miramax Films' knack for buying Oscar attention paid off with five nominations, none especially deserved.

Rental audience: Chocoholics; easy swooners.

Rent it if you enjoy: Babette's Feast, Like Water for Chocolate, Big Night

The Mexican

(R) Petty criminal Jerry Walbech (Brad Pitt) gets dumped by his lover (Julia Roberts) when he accepts a job smuggling an antique pistol to a gangland buyer. The gun is supposedly cursed, but Jerry's luck is already bad, with a hired killer (James Gandolfini) on his trail.

First impressions: "Who's the genius who hired Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts for a romantic adventure, then kept them either bickering or apart for most of The Mexican? The final, obviously tacked-on scenes of them happy together are a transparent attempt to make up for lost making time. Deprived of their mutual spark, The Mexican is a movie with little to offer and takes too much time to prove it. . . .

"The saving grace is the role designed for Gandolfini, one of the most natural -- therefore daring -- portrayals of a gay man ever in a mainstream movie. . . . Gandolfini never stoops to stereotype, even blasts away a few, generating a feeling of love and longing that few heterosexual screen couplings have recently."

Second thoughts: This movie went south of the border at the box office muy pronto.

Rental audience: Pitt and Roberts' most devoted fans only.

Rent it if you enjoy: Watching talent wasted.

3,000 Miles to Graceland

[Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures]

David Arquette, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner, Christian Slater and Bokeem Woodbine are among the Elvises in 3,000 miles to Graceland.

First impressions: "Costner, surprisingly, shifts out of heroic mode successfully enough to leave a lasting impression as Murphy, a lost soul who once vandalized the gates of Graceland, claiming to be a son of Presley. . . .

"(Director Demian) Lichtenstein, unfortunately, is a talent crippled by tone deafness. His latest piece, a film noir wannabe, is marked by stylistic dissonance, noise for the sake of noise and a false resolution. . . . (The filmmaker), despite his best efforts, has a terrible time balancing the comic elements of 3,000 Miles to Graceland with the film's relentless carnage." (Phillip Booth, Times correspondent)

Second thoughts: This dog never caught a rabbit, and it ain't no friend of mine.

Rental audience: Elvis sighters; recent Las Vegas visitors who can say: "Ooh, we were there."

Rent it if you enjoy: Imitation Tarantino flicks.

DVD

New and noteworthy for digital players

All trick, no treat in 'Halloween' DVD

Halloween -- Television Version

If you've seen John Carpenter's 1978 thriller Halloween only on network or syndicated television, you haven't seen Halloween. That makes releasing the TV version on DVD a dumb idea.

When NBC bought the rights to Halloween, several minutes of footage featuring violence, nudity and profanity were trimmed to meet network TV standards. However, those edits shortened the movie too much to fill a two-hour time slot, reducing the number of commercial spots to be sold. In order to sell more ads, Halloween needed to be longer.

Carpenter grudgingly inserted 12 minutes of unobjectionable footage to pad the running time for maximum revenue potential. Most of it was filmed during production of Halloween II.

It's nothing significant, or even matching the wide-screen format of the original movie. Just more scenes of Dr. Loomis (the late Donald Pleasence) dealing with young psychopath Michael Myers, plus some girl talk between co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis and P.J. Soles.

Now, Anchor Bay Entertainment is releasing the television version of Halloween on DVD. No bonus features or audio commentary, just a good movie diluted by TV greed.

Anchor Bay did produce a Halloween tribute disc two years ago with some extras, and Criterion got Carpenter to do a laser disc audio commentary in 1995. Yet, rather than loading some or all of those treats into a single DVD set, Anchor Bay is trying to trick us. Boo.

REWIND

Aldrich

Director wasn't famous, but movies are

Robert Aldrich wasn't a household name, like some filmmakers. Nobody rushed to the box office just because he directed a movie. He was never nominated for an Academy Award or Golden Globe and doesn't have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

But some of his movies have become pop culture staples, even before cable TV superstations and nostalgia channels made them recurring house guests. Tell me that you aren't tempted to click on The Dirty Dozen, The Longest Yard or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? when they show up in a program guide, and I'll check you for a pulse.

Aldrich made man's-man movies, with some detours into campy melodrama that was rightfully accused -- from current perspectives -- of being insensitive to women. Different eras, different tastes to offend. Women in Aldrich's films were either dames or demented but always a guilty pleasure to observe.

[Photo: Paramount Pictures]

Burt Reynolds and fellow inmates play a mean game against the prison guards in The Longest Yard.

The director was born on this date in 1918 and died in 1983 of kidney failure. Head to the video store for any of these Aldrich favorites, or else be patient. One of them should be showing up on TNT any day now.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? -- Nothing better than watching Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in a creepy cat fight that continued when the cameras stopped rolling. This time, relish Victor Buono's slimy performance as a greedy, misled gigolo.

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte -- Davis again, this time as a wilted Southern belle haunted by the fact that she murdered her beau decades ago. At least, that's what a dashing doctor (Joseph Cotten) keeps telling her. The Dirty Dozen -- Lee Marvin leads condemned criminals in a raid on a chateau hideaway for Nazi officers. Great macho cast including Jim Brown, Telly Savalas and Oscar-nominated John Cassavetes, who took the role only to finance his own film, Faces.

The Longest Yard -- Former football star (Burt Reynolds) leads prison inmates in a raucous revenge game against the guards. Somewhere in a closet, I still have a "Mean Machine" jersey with Reynolds' No. 22.

Emperor of the North -- A sadly overlooked film from 1973 starring Marvin as king of the train-hopping hobos. Keith Carradine plays his admiring apprentice, and Ernest Borgnine makes a vicious, cane-swinging adversary.

The Killing of Sister George -- One of the first X-rated films, more for its theme of lesbian love than for a notorious sex scene that seems very tame today. Beryl Reid and Susannah York are still good, but this is Aldrich's most dated film.

Kiss Me Deadly -- Ever wonder where Quentin Tarantino got the idea for that mysterious glowing lockbox in Pulp Fiction? From this taut film noir starring Ralph Meeker as private eye Mike Hammer on the trail of Cold War secrets.

The Grissom Gang -- Kim Darby lost her True Grit innocence playing a kidnapped heiress. Scott Wilson shines as the psychopath falling in love with her. Completely over-the-top and vaguely sadistic, like so many of Aldrich's works.

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