11’9’01

Eleven directors explore the terrorist attacks of two years ago for this feature-length anthology, made up of eleven short films lasting exactly eleven minutes, nine seconds and one frame each. The chapters jump freely along any number of tangents to the events of Sept. 11, 2001‚ from sharp political observations to moments of simple human loss. The film appears in American theaters at last, following a lengthy struggle to find a distributor here after being branded un-American. Though it was conceived of and assembled by a French television producer, 11’9’01 has an international spirit: each renowned director hails from a different country. America is represented by Sean Penn, while Ken Loach, the acclaimed observer of social ills, comes out for Britain. Mira Nair, who won a Harvard Arts Medal this spring‚ represents India. (SWVL)

American Splendor

One of the most refreshing films of the year, American Splendor skillfully manipulates the medium of film in the same way last year’s Adaptation toyed with the basic structures of the screenplay. Splendor’s foundation is the life of chronically cantankerous graphic artist Harvey Pekar, whose series of autobiographic comic books in the ’70s and ’80s captured the innate complexities of a simple existence and ultimately revolutionized the comic book industry. These books had a number of different illustrators, and the varying styles are translated by directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini into various visual presentations of Pekar. For the majority of the film, he is portrayed by Paul Giamatti, who pulls no punches in presenting the artist in all his ill-tempered glory. At other times, the actual Pekar appears in the form of footage from David Letterman appearances or to comment on the film’s production. At other times, he is shown as no more than a pencil sketch. These interpretations intermingle to give a fully realized portrayal of this oddly compelling figure. By maximizing the potential of the motion picture art form, Splendor manages at once to revel in its constructions and transcend them. (BYC)

Anything Else

With the box office for his movies dwindling with each successive release, Woody Allen pulls out all the stops to attract an audience for Anything Else. His pre-film desperation apparently was so great that he even managed not to cast himself as romantic lead opposite an actress 40 years his junior. Christina Ricci and the film’s overall plausibility level benefit as a result, but Anything Else has nevertheless been a catastrophe for both Allen and his financial backers. The movie is marginally better than the director’s other recent efforts, even making a few Annie Hall-worthy observations and launching the occasional great one-liner. But despite the dogged efforts of leading man Jason Biggs—clearly inserted as an idealized younger version of Allen—the film ultimately suffers from having too many characters who are all just too crazy to be believed. Squandering a cast which includes Stockard Channing and Danny DeVito is no easy feat, but the characters’ conflicting neuroses, psychoses and bizarre philosophical views grow tiresome long before the film has finished its first hour. In titling his movie Anything Else, Allen has unwittingly suggested which movies potential theatergoers would be better off seeing. (NKB)

Camp

Todd Graff leaps offstage with his cinematic directorial debut, Camp. Hailed as the Fame for a new generation, it lives up to its promise as a feel-good, energetic flick about misfit kids who sing and dance their way to a sense of community at a stereotypical theater camp. The requisite gay boys bunk together, with Robin de Jesus’ Michael, a self-doubting Latino, providing the stand-out performance of the film. Joanna Chilcoat plays Ellen, a love-lorn teenage girl devoted to her gay male campmates, with grace and humor, and falls for the seemingly sole straight camper, Vlad (Daniel Letterle), the less-than-captivating Romeo of her romance. The theme is somewhat tired—we all know what it’s like to not fit in at high school—but the music and choreography are great. Besides, what could beat a cameo performance by Stephen Sondheim, replete with stretch limo? Only the uproarious reaction of these Broadway babies to his arrival at summer camp. (ABM)

Lost in Translation

Fulfilling the boundless promise exhibited in her debut effort, The Virgin Suicides, director Sofia Coppola crafts a sublime love letter to both Tokyo and transitory friendship with her newest film, Lost in Translation. Hollywood star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) has been shipped off to Japan to hawk Suntory whiskey to the natives. There he encounters Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), the beautiful wife of a photographer who spends much of her day staring out her window in hopes of somehow finding herself within the city’s skyline. The pair are soon discovering Tokyo culture and a profundity in their friendship that is lacking in their respective marriages. Johansson perfects the prolonged sulk, while Murray delivers his best performance yet, donning the hats of weary voyager, droll companion and cynical mentor with equal comfort. There are plenty of belly laughs to be had along the way, but what remains with the viewer is the significance of the fleeting connection that these two people share. Coppola dreamily lingers on every scene, adorning each of them with the sensation of the aftermath of a first kiss. (BYC)

The Magdalene Sisters

Set in an unconventional nunnery in 1960s Ireland, The Magdalene Sisters is a film about hypocrisy, dogma and the horrible deeds committed as a result of religious hysteria. This fact-based story focuses on the lives of three women who, in one sense or another, are judged by the Catholic Church as having been “sinful” and, as a result, are essentially sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor and abuse at the hands of the Sisters of Mercy in what was known as a Magdalene Laundry. The sins of these women extend from the merely unthinkable—flirting with boys—to the purely satanic bearing a child out of wedlock or being raped by one’s cousin. In reprisal for these transgressions, the nuns of the Laundry subject the women to humiliation, threats of eternal damnation, and pure outright sadism, all of which all but force the women—many of whom had been entirely sexually innocent prior to their arrival—to sell themselves for the slightest opportunity of escape. Not so much an attack on Catholicism as all religion, this film depicts the needless abuses inflicted upon women in the name of faith. (SNJ)

The Secret Lives of Dentists

Alan Rudolph’s adaptation of Jane Smiley’s novella “The Age of Grief,” features projectile vomiting on the scale of Spirited Away but manages to make it charming. Three young girls, sickeningly cute even with the flu, steal the show from their parents, dentists and partners-in-practice David (Campbell Scott) and Dana Hurst (Hope Davis). The blond babes are also the only thing rooting David to the roost—he thinks he has witnessed his wife stealing a kiss backstage at her debut singing Verdi as an amateur soprano—and his visions of her infidelity envelop him as the movie progresses. These fantasies are spurred by David’s ethereal companion, Slater (Denis Leary), his most difficult patient, who follows him home in spirit to tap his repressed emotions. Through accomplished acting and exacting direction, the cast manages to achieve wonders with a somewhat limited script, presenting a look as if through a keyhole at the crossroads of a contemporary relationship. (ABM)

Swimming Pool