Month: March 2000

Erin Brockovich (review)

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If last Saturday night’s sneak-preview audience is any guide, this could be Julia Roberts’s biggest movie yet. Everything she did onscreen, everything she said either elicited ardent routs of laughter or sent what could only be called worshipful undulations rippling through the crowd. The thrall in which Roberts held these people frightened me. I’m sure execs at Universal Pictures are already peeing in their collective pants with anticipation over this weekend’s box office. Biggest opening ever for a March weekend — you read it here first.

Dolphins (review)

My impression that there is more than mere animal intelligence behind the keen eyes of a dolphin is strengthened by a new IMAX documentary called, appropriately enough, Dolphins. IMAX films have tended to be spectacles, however entertaining: Look how big! how high! how fast! Dolphins, while undoubtedly spectacular, achieves more depth with its exploration of the underwater world of these majestic aquatic mammals and how their interactions with humans have affected them — and how they affect us.

Mission to Mars (review)

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So how else can I react to Mission to Mars but with enthusiasm? Here is a mostly scientifically accurate movie about the planet that actually looks as if it were filmed there. No, it’s not a perfect film — but as one of the like-minded friends with whom I saw Mission to Mars pointed out, we’re so hungry for real science fiction on film that we can forgive its flaws.

Apollo 13 (review)

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Despite the fact that we all know how the story ends, director Ron Howard manages to make Apollo 13 not only riveting but suspenseful as well. Howard’s attention to detail goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Orphans (review)

The Scots have a dark, wry sense of humor, and perhaps only a Scottish filmmaker could have had both the audacity to attempt a black comedy about grief and the sensibility to pull it off. Best known as an actor for his award-winning performance in My Name Is Joe, Peter Mullan here he goes behind the camera in a wonderfully biting feature-film debut as writer/director. Orphans is as absurdly funny as it is heart-wrenchingly painful, and contains, in a story of apparently modest scope, some of the most poignantly real as well as some of the most bemusingly dreamy moments I think I’ve ever seen on film.