Movies

SAY IT ISN'T SO

When Bobby and Peter Farrelly throw their names on a film, (Something About Mary, Me Myself and Irene, Dumb & Dumber), there is a simple recipe that is followed by these guys. First: the film must be a love story that involves a down-on-his-luck gent with a drop-dead gorgeous woman. Second: the film must involve an extremely long road trip, during which the car doesn't take normal highways, but rather small byways. Thirdly, there must be jokes about handicapped or mentally-challenged individuals. Last but not least, sprinkle the film with a good grossout gag that will have the audience screaming with horror and laughter. Say it Isn't So follows the same instructions, but I have a feeling most audiences have caught on to this formula, therefore it will not be the box office gorilla Something About Mary was.

Chris Klein stars as Gilly, a girlfriendless dog/cat catcher who has been searching for his birth mother since he was a child. Heather Graham plays Joe, the newest and worse hairstylist in the town of Shelbyville, Indiana. During an ear cut, I mean haircut, Gilly realizes he had found Joe's missing cat, and after returning it they begin a six-month romance. Right about his time, a private investigator reveals to Gilly that his birth mother is none other that Joe's mother, played by Sally Field. After the locals in Shelbyville decide to make Gilly the joke of the town, Joe returns to Beaver, Oregon, and within a few months she decides to marry her very wealthy ex-boyfriend.

Gilly soon learns he is indeed not her brother and decides to drive to Oregon and win back Joe. During his trip, Joe's money-hungry mother informs the Beaver police, as well as Joe, that Gilly is an insane sex offender and that he should be arrested on sight. On the road trip, Gilly runs into-- and I do mean runs into-- Orlando Jones, who plays Digs, the legless airline pilot who is a doppelganger for Jimi Hendrix. Once they arrive in Beaver, Gilly learns that he is a wanted man and he goes through the usual mishaps our hero would encounter, including, no surprise to anyone, crashing the wedding at the end.

Since this film follows the usual Farrelly formula, the only way viewers will be surprised is by grosser gags and jokes that push the envelope. For the most part, these jokes work, but they're so spread out, the laughter is sporadic rather than continuous. Chris Klein plays his usual Keanu Reeves Junior, and much like Keanu did with Speed, Klein is about to break out of his B-movie roles with this summer's action-packed film Rollerball. As for the rest of the cast, Sally Field does a consistant job of playing a money-hungry hick and Heather Graham plays ...well, she plays Heather Graham. The one to look out for is Orlando Jones. He's come a long way from those 7-Up commercials, and he keeps this film together as the comic relief and Gilly's guardian angel. C+ --Neal James

Movie Review

BLOW

When I was a kid I thought Johnny Depp was a pussy. I equated his name with all the squealing girls who wouldn't talk to me in junior high and with that crap show "21 Jump Street." His name to me was the cover of Tiger Beat magazine-- his bangs hanging mysteriously over one of his eyes.

I grew to really respect him, however, when I was pursuing my journalism degree. I did the typical rebel-drunk writer thing and began to idolize Hunter S. Thompson. So when Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas hit theatres, I was drunk and first in line to see it. It was after watching Depp's portrayal of Thompson-- especially the ether bit in Circus Circus-- that I reviewed his work and realized I had been unfair in my past judgment of his abilities. I realized he has a massive amount of talent. I had a similar epiphany with Brad Pitt at about the same time, when Pitt appeared in Terry Gilliam's scifi drama 12 Monkeys. They've both gotten a bum rap as actors in the past because they're pretty boys. It can be a harsh environment for handsome men in the professional world; I know it all too well.

So now Johnny Depp stars in Blow-- a new drug movie based on the life of George Jung, a drug dealer who, in the '70s, helped Pablo Escobar introduce cocaine to the west coast of America. There's more to this movie than just cocaine. It is also about Jung's relationship with the women in his life, including his nowestranged daughter, and the turbulent relationship he had with his parents.

George can't turn away from his true talent: he is really good at selling drugs. In the film, he starts out selling grass on the beach in California, and quickly learns the ins and outs of smuggling by working his way up the narcotics ladder. His climb to the top of the drug world is far more entertaining than the rather flat descent that follows, but assuming the film sticks primarily to the facts of Jung's life, it's a pretty burly ride.

This movie moves at a pace set by a score of other drug-centered period-movies-- expletive narration of drug dealing for us stiffs, flashy shots of decadent behavior so we know just how glamorous it looks to be fucking high, and a timely and loud soundtrack by the Stones-- and it narrowly holds on to its originality while borrowing from films like Goodfellas and Boogie Nights. This is due largely to a deft performance by Depp and good supporting work from Ray Liotta as his pops, Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) as his girlfriend, and Paul Reubens as a flaming hairdresser/kingpin. C+ --Josh Tyson

DVD REPORT

THE ARENA

Swept up by conquering Roman forces in the last century before the calendar switched from B.C. to A.D., the druid priestess Bodicia (Margaret Markov) and the Nubian Mamawi (Pam Grier) find themselves enslaved in the service of Timarchus (Daniele Vargas), who runs the local version of the Coliseum in a minor Roman city. Starved for novelty, the town's Drunken Mob demands something new, and the two women, along with the other female slaves, find themselves thrust into the role of gladiator. They must now find a way to escape, or inevitably die in the blood-soaked sand of the arena.

Women in Prison (WiP) pictures had proven quite profitable for Roger Corman's New World Pictures, and The Arena provided a venue for the genre different from the usual Filipino prison farm. As a combination of the WiP film and the previous decade's swordandsandal flicks, it is modestly successful. Still pretty entertaining for the drivein fan-- the history is fairly correct, breasts are exposed every ten minutes, the fights are good (especially in the mandatory climactic jailbreak), and there is a reason Pam Grier is an icon.

Concorde steps up to the plate with a slap in the face to a cinematic elitist like myself-- the movie starts in glorious 2:35:1 aspect, but after the credits, expands to a leaden, pan-and-scanned full-screen treatment. This is rarely problematic-- it's not like we're talking Sergio Leone compositions here-- until the fight scenes in the titular arena, in which we generally see either only one combatant, or mere portions of both. Then, at the end, the picture once more draws back into scope, so that the end credits may play, and I may draw a heavy sigh.

There is the usual trailer (and it's presented in Scope, he grumbled). "Biographies" gives you text pieces on producer Corman, stars Grier and Markov, and credited director Steve Carver. The Corman section also provides access to two excerpts of Leonard Maltin's interview with Roger Corman-- in the first segment, Corman talks about WiP films in general; the second, curiously, is about the Ron Howard Smoky & the Bandit clone, Eat My Dust. I'm still puzzling over that particular inclusion. --Dr. Freex

Buy The Arena DVD from Amazon.com