This is a follow-up to the three previous installments of Selected Takes. In 1996, I started keeping a log of films I saw. Initially, I wrote notes for each film expressing my reaction to it, but eventually wrote less and less until I basically stopped sometime in 2001. Got lazy. I wrote these just for myself and had no thought or intention at the time that they might one day be released into the wild, so to speak. The films from 1999 in this post aren’t the only ones I saw that year, far from it, just those I wrote about and want to include here.
As before, when I mention a Sony or Loews theater, these are now AMC. Except for minor edits and a few notations, I’ve left these entries as they were originally, though I’ve added posters for a little color. Occasional present-day comments are in bold.
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1/16. IN DREAMS at Sony Lincoln Square. Neil Jordan movie with Annette Bening & Robert Downey Jr. Jordan makes the difference here with fairly standard genre material. Bening is very good, but the rest of the cast doesn’t really have much to do, at least as far as developed characters go. But Jordan creates a genuinely creepy feeling, though finally I think it’s probably less than meets the eye. The music was also quite effective.
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1/17. VIRUS at Loews 84th. Pretty bad. Lame rip-off of rip-offs of yet more rip-offs of ALIEN. Donald Sutherland is terrible. It’s kind of dismaying to see the kind of work he can do in a film like WITHOUT LIMITS and then see him in this. The movie does nothing for any of the rest of the cast, though Joanna Pacula is kind of cool.
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2/5. PAYBACK at Lowes 84th. Not very good. Certainly doesn’t compare well with John Boorman’s POINT BLANK (1967), which it’s a very loose remake of. Very grubby violence for a studio picture. Didn’t like the look of the film. Think the color was bleached out of the picture, which had a cold, steely monochromatic look, kind of dirty & oily. Of course, this was a deliberate effect, but it was too studied, or so extreme it drew attention to itself, or at least to me. Gibson is no Lee Marvin, not in this anyway. Boorman’s version is superior in every way. James Coburn was good, though.
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2/20. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND at Sony Lincoln Square. Not very good. Don’t think I’ve seen this since the initial release. The beginning and ending are impressive and effective, but was surprised how superficial and irritating and incomplete the rest of it seems. I found Richard Dreyfuss particularly irritating. Francois Truffaut was quite appealing, though. It all seems pretty dated now, including the special effects.
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3/6. LOCK, STOCK AND 2 SMOKING BARRELS at Sony Lincoln Square. Directed by Guy Ritchie. Pretty good in a post-Tarantino, Trainspotting kind of way. I didn’t really get to know or care about any of the characters, but enjoyed watching the whole thing play out. Great use of music.
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3/7. 8MM at Loews 84th Street. Directed by Joel Schumacher. Not very good, but Joaquin Phoenix jacks it up whenever he’s on. Otherwise it’s a very underlit movie with Nicolas Cage in a kind of monotone on a descent into a very dark place, but I didn’t believe it. James Gandolfini is good in his role. Pretty good music.
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3/13. THE CORRUPTOR at Loews 84th Street. Directed by James Foley, with Chow Yun-Fat & Mark Wahlberg. Slick, but not very involving. Ostensibly a Hong Kong-style action movie, it has aspirations to something more complex, more like a Sidney Lumet cop movie. The actor playing Henry Lee was quite effective. Didn’t seem to be grounded in any kind of reality. Lots of New York skylines and streets, but didn’t feel like we were actually in New York. Didn’t feel like these were real cops or FBI agents. The narrative moved along pretty clumsily.
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3/19. TRUE CRIME at Loews 84th Street. Disappointing Clint Eastwood film. It has many strong moments and sequences, but overall I just didn’t buy it, though not sure why. One thing is that Eastwood simply looks too old for this kind of role anymore. Same reaction to Paul Newman in TWILIGHT. The scene where Isaiah Washington’s daughter leaves him for the supposedly last time in his death row cell is truly powerful and got to me emotionally. The performances are all good, though the scenes with Eastwood and James Woods felt forced and somewhat false. The down-to-the-wire and beyond last minute rescue was unbelievable when you think about it, but the editing really cranked up the tension, though the outcome was hardly in much doubt. I’m always pulling for Clint’s movies, and I wanted to like this one more than I did.
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4/1. THE MATRIX at Lincoln Square. Pretty good. Had more emotional content than I expected, though still almost totally dependent on the amazing special effects to hold the interest. Something about it makes me want to see it again.
4/4. THE MATRIX at Lincoln Square. Felt a strong pull to see this again. Holds up very well the second time, and actually seems more substantial.
There have been three sequels. each one worse than the last. I still think the original is pretty great, but what the hell happened after that?
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4/24. URBAN GHOST STORY at Walter Reade. Directed by Geneviève Jolliffe. Pretty good. Sort of like if Ken Loach or Mike Leigh had made THE EXORCIST or POLTERGEIST. The supernatural genre trappings are kept in the background while the social milieu is the foreground. Not even sure at the end if there was anything supernatural going on or not.
4/25. PUSHING TIN at Ziegfeld. Directed by Mike Newell. Not very good, finally. Good performances by all, Cusack, Thornton, Angelina Jolie & Kate Blanchett. Cusack is particularly good when he blows up in the car when Jolie tells him she told her husband, Thornton, that she & Cusack had gone to bed together. Blanchett is terrific playing a Long Island housewife, but she doesn’t have much to do. It’s more sketchy than developed. The ending is pretty bad.
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5/1. THE WINSLOW BOY at Lincoln Plaza. Liked this, though it’s finally a little flat. I wanted a stronger climax or peak or something, something emotionally stronger. Seemingly strange material for David Mamet, but he handles it well, if very carefully. The performances were stellar, particularly Nigel Hawthorne and Jeremy Northam. One neat thing is that Mamet leaves the possibility that the kid did in fact steal the postal note.
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6/3. THE SOURCE at DGA Theater. Kind of a Cliff’s Notes approach to a history of the Beats, focusing mainly on the Ginsberg-Kerouac-Burroughs trinity. The readings, or performances, by John Turturro, Dennis Hopper, and to a lesser extent, Johnny Depp, were a real mistake, especially Turturro. But it was nice seeing the archival footage. Don’t think Chuck Workman was the right guy for this.
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6/12. ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW at Walter Reade. Had seen this once before, but quite awhile ago. Good fatalistic noir directed by Robert Wise. Robert Ryan is amazing, particularly in his bar room confrontation with the soldier (a very young Wayne Rogers). Harry Belafonte, Abraham Polansky & John Lewis (who did the music) were at Walter Reade for a panel discussion afterwards. Polansky was really quite annoying. Belafonte was very interesting, though a bit of a windbag.
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6/17. GRAND ILLUSION at DGA Theater. Great movie, hadn’t seen it for a long time. Restored print, newly translated subtitles. Got a strong rush at the end when the movie comes up when the German soldier tells the others not to shoot, that the escapees have crossed into Switzerland, and another soldier lowers his rifle and says they’re better off, and the music comes up very loud, then cut to long shot of Gabin & Dalio in the distance in the snow.
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6/19. STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE at Ziegfeld. Finally saw this and it’s not bad. Visually it’s really amazing, but I didn’t feel much for the characters, though Liam Neeson brought a real authority to his role. The kid, Jake Lloyd, was good sometimes, not good other times. Didn’t find Jar-Jar Binks to be quite the irritant a lot of other reviewers have, though he’s clearly there just for comic relief. The light sabre duel between Neeson, McGregor & Darth Maul at the end was pretty good. But the movie is really just a really expensive installment, sets things up and now we wait 2 or 3 years for the next one.
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7/17. EYES WIDE SHUT at Sony Lincoln Square. Not sure what to make of this, which is a typical response for me to a first-time viewing of a new Kubrick film (though I think I was more sure of FULL METAL JACKET first time out). It has scenes & shots of incredible power, but kind of meanders about, and the ending left me kind of hanging; it felt abrupt. I’ll definitely see it again , and probably soon. Have to wonder how I’d feel about it if it’d been made by a director I didn’t know about; would I be harsher? Do I cut it more slack than it deserves just because it’s Kubrick? Probably. But as time as shown with his other films, his work is so dense & deliberate that one viewing can’t really do it justice.
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7/18. ARLINGTON ROAD at Sony Lincoln Square. Directed by Mark Pellington. Pretty damn good. Jeff Bridges was especially good, but he almost always is. Tim Robbins was also good, though his role doesn’t give him as much to do. The tension gets progressively cranked up until it peaks in the big finale, which seems like it’s going to be another down-to-the-wire rescue and bomb-defusing, but they surprised the hell out of me by going ahead and letting the bomb go off, killing Bridges and having him blamed as the solo perpetrator of the bombing in the coda. Similar to the ending of THE PARALLAX VIEW. Leaves you with a very paranoid feeling. I was quite surprised by how effective this movie was. Had been seeing trailers for months, wondering when it was going to be released. A 1-sheet in the theater lobby has “January 15th” at the bottom, indicating a much earlier planned release. Bridges was particularly good expressing the frustration and finally panic of a man out of his depth. It’s a Hitchcockian situation, actually, the premise of a man who begins to suspect his neighbor.
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7/22. VIOLENT COP at Cinema Village. Takeshi Kitano’s first film (1989) as director, I believe. Turns out I’d seen it before, but can’t remember when or where. His films have a very flat, deadpan style, which can be quite unsettling, given the content. No explanation for his character is offered at all, he just is.
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7/23. ILLUMINATA at DGA Theater. John Turturro directed & co-wrote. Sometimes jarring mixture of farce & realism. Thought I wouldn’t like it at first, but the realistic moments have a lot of power and it’s filled with great characters. As a friend said after the movie, the farcical scenes kept him from hooking more emotionally into the characters and the more serious aspects. Turturro was there for interview and q&a afterwards, which was nice. This kind of thing almost always enlarges my feelings about the film just seen.
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7/24. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT at Loews 84th. Doesn’t work, but it’s interesting. Hard to explain the must-see atmosphere around this movie. Some very clever counter-marketing techniques at work, I think. The escalating bickering among the three protagonists held my interest the most. There’s some creepiness from the strange shit going on during the night, but the premise of the film, the way it was shot, limiting us to only what the fictional filmmakers shot on video & 16mm, prevents that from being exploited in a way I could latch onto more.
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7/25. SUMMER OF SAM at Sony Lincoln Square. Liked this more than I thought I would. Some very strong sequences, especially the two set to the Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Spike Lee’s stuff is usually pretty overheated, but this time that worked more than it didn’t. Adrian Brody was really good.
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7/30. DEEP BLUE SEA at Loews 84th. Pretty good, in a simplistic action summer movie kind of way. Not much in the way of character development or story, but it’s all about doing a quick set-up at the beginning and then turning things loose. Samuel L. Jackson’s character’s demise is pretty jolting and quite effective. I also didn’t expect the female protagonist to buy it at the end. Then again, it’s not too credible that LL Cool J could’ve survived the shark-chomping he does near the end. But what the hell, none of it matters anyway. As a thrill-ride it’s a lot better than THE MUMMY. I had a good time and can’t complain.
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7/31. EYES WIDE SHUT at Sony Lincoln Square. Wanted to see how it played a second time, particularly after having just seen PATHS OF GLORY, STRANGELOVE, and BARRY LYNDON. Compared to something like BARRY LYNDON, which seems a massive achievement to me now, EYES is a much lessor work. I think it’s only intermittently successful. Cruise is basically kind of uninteresting in the film. Kidman is much better, particularly in the bedroom scene when they’ve been smoking pot, but when she’s drunk at the party dancing with that somewhat ridiculous Hungarian guy, she’s not very good at all. Cruise’s two visits to the costume shop are somewhat ineffective. The ending in the toy store is unsatisfying. Plus I really didn’t like the one-note piano music when it came in; found it really irritating, though occurs to me maybe it was supposed to be. Alan Cummings performance as the obviously gay, or at least extremely effeminate, hotel clerk, is over the top, and I have to wonder why Kubrick wanted that. Though it is kind of interesting how this scene and Cruise’s earlier encounter on the street with the drunken gay-bashing teenagers plays off the stories that have circulated that Tom Cruise is gay in “real” life. Also interesting how Cruise’s character is totally out of his depth, progressively so. Pollack’s “explanation” near the end calls into question Cruise’s entire experience. Actually, the movie gets more interesting the more I think about it, but it still seems like kind of a mess. Who knows, in 6 months it may seem like a masterpiece, or maybe just an interesting failure. Probably the least imaginative music score & use of existing music in a Kubrick film, with the exception of Chris Issak’s “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing” over the mirror scene, which was great.
My efforts to see this again have failed every time, can’t seem to get past the first thirty minutes or so. Am I somehow failing Stanley by not giving the film more careful consideration? Don’t think so, but will take another run at it one of these days.
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8/1. LE BOUCHER & THE BEAST MUST DIE (aka This Man Must Die) at Walter Reade. Two more films in the Chabrol series. Had seen LE BOUCHER at least twice in Iowa City when it first came out and liked it a lot. It seemed like a much simpler story this time around, still very good, but would’ve liked a little more development plot-wise. Stephane Audran is really beautiful in this one. BEAST I’d seen once before. Of the two it’s probably the most complex. Jean Yanne’s character is almost too much of a bastard, but very entertaining, if that’s the right word.
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8/7. THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR at Sony Lincoln Square. I liked this a lot. Can’t really remember the Steve MacQueen version, but am sure this one is better. Brosnan and especially Rene Russo are very good. She’s the main character, really. A very strong character. Dennis Leary is good, too.
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8/7. THE IRON GIANT at Sony Lincoln Square. Thought this was great. Excellent animated feature directed by Brad Bird, set in 1957, lots of period details. The giant robot is terrific, a wonderful 50s design. Noticed one anachronism; a ‘59 Cadillac in the junkyard. Nice anti-gun message, nothing subtle about it.
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8/8. DICK at Sony Lincoln Square. Disappointing, not very good. I expected something edgier. Kirsten Dunst & Michelle Williams are pretty good, but it’s just not very clever. Will Farrell (who I generally dislike on SNL) and Bruce McCulloch (sp?) were pretty funny as clown versions of Woodward & Bernstein. Teri Garr was totally wasted.
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9/4. ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA at AMMI. The full version, hadn’t seen it in a long time. It’s very good, but starts to unravel about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through. The ending is unsatisfying, kind of flat Plus there are unanswered questions about Max’s survival in 1933. How did he pull that off? Anyway, good to see it again.
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9/5. OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE at Sony Lincoln Square. Liked this a lot. The Farrelly Brothers & Michael Corrente wrote it and Corrente directed. What else has he directed? Left me with a good feeling. It’s first & foremost a comedy, but there are some serious issues addressed and not a lot of pat resolutions or everything tied up neatly by the end. Alec Baldwin is great as the father.
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9/17. STOP MAKING SENSE at Film Forum. Even better than I remembered. I had a strong emotional response to it and the music is truly wonderful. The Tom Tom Club number was out of place; didn’t like that at all. Jonathan Demme was in the audience with some kids, presumably his, watching the movie with the rest of us. Noticed him before it started and couldn’t get that out of my head; it added another layer or level to my experience. Talked with him for couple minutes afterward. He was very nice. Gave me a kick that apparently only a couple others in the audience had realized he was there.
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9/19. THE MUSE at Sony Lincoln Square. Pretty bad, but I was warned by the reviews, though I try not to pay attention to reviews, or rather, not read any until after I’ve seen a particular movie. Reading the negative takes on this one probably set me up to dislike it, but can’t imagine I wouldn’t have anyway. Many of the scenes play very flat. Overall it’s just not very funny or astute. As many characters in the movie say about Brooks’ screenwriter character ‘s work, it has no edge. His earlier films, especially MODERN ROMANCE and LIFE IN AMERICA were very sharp and had a lot of “edge”. Sharon Stone has her moments, but this isn’t any sort of comedic breakthrough for her by any means. The cameos by James Cameron and Martin Scorsese are basically pretty stupid.
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9/22. SUGAR TOWN at Loews 84th. Very good film about has-beens & second-stringers in the L.A. music scene. Allison Anders & Kurt Voss (who’s he?) co-directed. Had a very nice feel to it, like the characters were decent people, except one or two. Have to find out more about the making of this movie, who the actors are (the ones I don’t know), etc.
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10/4. DOGMA at New York Film Festival. Didn’t much like this, though I wanted to and expected to. Felt like a lot of it just wasn’t funny and that the pacing was very flat at times. Matt Damon was very good, also Linda Fiorentino. A lot of people from the movie were at the screening before & after. Director Kevin Smith, who comes off as a very funny guy; Matt Damon; Ben Affleck, whose comments made him seem like a bit of a jerk; Chris Rock; Selma Hayek, who was wearing a great dress; Howard Shore, who did the score; Jason Mewes, who plays a rather annoying character that’s shown up in every Smith film so far, along with Smith himself playing Silent Bob. The Q&A was very entertaining.
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11/21. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH at Loews 84th. Directed by Michael Apted. Not very good, but at least better than the previous Bond movie, TOMORROW NEVER DIES. Brosnan and Judi Dench are good as Bond & M, and I guess Sophis Marceau is good in her role, but Denise Richards is absurd, though not necessarily her fault. The movie looks and sounds good and big and expensive, but they just don’t feel like James Bond movies anymore. For me, GOLDENEYE was the last good one, also the first with Brosnan.
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11/24. RIDE WITH THE DEVIL at Sony Lincoln Square. Directed by Ang Lee. Liked this a lot. Especially liked that it didn’t end with the predictable violence you might have expected from the way things were set up. The movie doesn’t quite reach the level I think it could have, but I liked the tone and feeling of it.
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11/26. ONE WEEK, BIG BUSINESS, EASY STREET at Walter Reade. Keaton, Laurel & Hardy and Chaplin 2-reelers with live scores by Alloy Orchestra. Good, but not as great as I’d hoped. The Alloy Orchestra scores worked sometimes and not others. The Keaton was a little more primitive than I’d remembered, but still great. This may be the first time he does the gag where a wall falls on him but he’s okay because and open window frame goes over where he’s standing. I think he does it in another 2-reeler before doing it big time in STEAMBOAT BILL JR with the whole front of a 2-story building falling over him.
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12/5. SWEET AND LOWDOWN at Lincoln Plaza. Liked it, the music was great, Samantha Morton was great and Sean Penn was well-cast as an obnoxious asshole.
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12/11. THE GREEN MILE at Sony Lincoln Square. Directed by Frank Darabont. Too long at 3 hrs. Cut to 2 hrs. I think it’d be much better, or maybe just shorter. There are good scenes, but also stuff that just doesn’t work on screen, i.e. John Coffey’s miracles. The botched electrocution is pretty wild, but goes way over the top. Also too many exploding lightbulbs throughout the movie. Darabont’s way to emphasize that something really unusual was taking place is to have a few lightbulbs burst in a shower of fx sparks either in the background or foreground. Tom Hanks is good, or as good as the role lets him be. Not sure what was the point of having him gain so much weight, especially in his face. The various “explanations” of what was happening, especially at the end in present day when the older Hanks character is explaining about Mr. Jangles etc in the shack, just aren’t very compelling or even that clear. Good performances all around, though.
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12/12. CRADLE WILL ROCK at Loews E-Walk. Written & directed by Tim Robbins. With a kind of Altmanesque interweaving of characters and story lines, the movie cranks up a fair head of steam by its climax. Takes a while to take hold for me, and most of the characters remain kind of 2-dimensional, though Cherry Jones as the WPA Theater head is extraordinary. Emily Watson is also very good; actually, all the performances are good.
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12/14. THE CIDER HOUSE RULES at DGA Theater. Liked it. Tobey McGuire is very appealing. Micheal Caine & Charlize Theron are good. Jane Alexander & Kathy Bates have rather limited roles, but they’re both good. Thought the incest business with Delroy Lindo and his daughter was too much weight for the movie to carry. Rose Rose could’ve been pregnant without the father actually being her father. Don’t know, it just seemed like too much to me. Liked it overall, though.
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12/18. MAGNOLIA at Sony Lincoln Square. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Dazzling, but may be a case of “sound & fury signifying nothing”. Not really sure if it adds up to all that much, or if what’s actually going on justifies the length and style. Pretty powerful, though. Feels like it’s constantly building to a climax, which creates a lot of tension, because I’m always expecting things to explode. Reviews have made references to Altman & Scorsese, but what about the Coen Bros. as well? Strong scenes: John C. Riley at the black woman’s apartment; Julianne Moore blowing up at the pharmacy; the raining frogs.
Paul Th0mas Anderson has gone on to make serious, solid films, with great performances and texture. These include There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Phantom Thread (2017), Licorice Pizza (2021). I’ll be seeing his just-released film, One Battle After Another, in a couple of days in 70mm IMAX.
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That does it for this one. See you next time. — Ted Hicks
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Previous editions of this series consist mainly of shots of actors and directors caught in off-camera moments during the making of a movie, sometimes off-set, at home and elsewhere. This special edition focuses on filmmakers and actors smoking. Some shots are candid, while some are obviously posed for promotional purposes.These come from a time when smoking was endemic in our culture. I grew up in the 1950s when it seemed like everybody smoked — my parents, their friends, people in movies and on TV. No-smoking bans were years in the future. Health concerns about smoking got little if any attention. Cigarettes were props, a way of shaping an image. Being photographed holding a cigarette or having one hanging out of the mouth could add a sense of glamor, sexiness, or mystery. I think that’s at work in many of these photographs, though in the more candid shots, the person just happened to be smoking at the time.
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Films etc. 