Month: May 2000

Falling in love with a married man is a sure path to heartbreak, as many a single girl has learned the hard way. Parisian Camille (Karin Viard) doesn’t want to hear about the drawbacks: she has, much to her surprise, become smitten with Alexis (Pierre-Loup Rajot). A straight-arrow local political activist, he, married with two … more…

A fender bender with a gangster. An explosion at the local yakuza HQ. A suitcase full of dirty — and bloody — money. This is the kind of day it has been for timid rental-car clerk Satoru Suzuki (Masanobu Ando). Throw in a meek nurse, Shizuko Sato (Japanese TV star Hikari Ishida), and you’ve got … more…

I am utterly in the thrall of Kevin Spacey, so whatever I say here must be taken with a grain of salt. I think he’s probably the most mesmerizing actor I’ve ever seen onscreen, and I’ve yet to see a film that he didn’t make worth seeing for his performance. And the ironic thing is, two movies that demonstrate this beguiling talent of Spacey’s are quite theatrical: The Big Kahuna is a faithful adaptation of a stage play, and Swimming with Sharks feels, at least in part, as if it could be.

The lovesick round-robin — Joe loves Mary, Mary loves Bill, and Bill loves someone else — is a fairly standard plot for romantic comedies, but it feels freshly deployed in director Bruno Barreto’s light and airy Bossa Nova. Set amongst the palm trees and sandy beaches of Rio de Janeiro, this bittersweet story follows a series of flirtatious entanglements between Brazilians and ex-pat and visiting Americans, most of whom have given up on love but find themselves persuaded to give the relationship game one more try.