Shadowlands

THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
The routine revival is done and once again with leaving a lot of cherry poppin’ daddies with no place to threaten get rid of their two-tone shoes. Top dog Brian Johnson’s film Drop in was filmed in 1997 and released in 1999 but it’s only hitting DVD seldom. Inert, this fashionable throwback to the slickster era has enough verve and goofy calm to outlive its before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’ of cultural relevancy.

Billed as a cross between The X-Files and Scooby Doo, Pop tells the story of Nora (Elisa Donovan of the Clueless and Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV series) and Nick (Peter Paige from Queer as Folk), co-workers at the Oppenheimer labs. This light-hearted pair of physicists find themselves caught up in a plot cooked up by various shadowy government agencies to find their co-worker Hugo, who seems to have stolen something called the Fat Boy Numeral. There is a lot of running around (mostly in a slap-stick style) and eventually Hugo is located, shacking up with an unusual new girlfriend named Five.

The thing that makes Pop stand out is that nearly everyone in it seems to have internalized the rhythms and feel of some weird swingin’ alternate universe. They speak in groovy slang and wear styling outfits but there’s a feel and sensibility to the way they carry themselves as well. The two leads in particular are really effective. Paige is snappy and sarcastic, approaching nearly every situation, no matter how absurd, with a “seen it all” attitude. He really gets to show off his witty side here. Between this role and his role on Queer as Folk this guy has the sharp-tongued sass-mouthed hipster all wrapped up.

Donovan is just as good. She was perfectly cruel in Clueless but here she gets to show off a much sweeter side, matching Paige for wit but also adding a soft feminine touch. There’s something really fetching about her performance. Like her co-star she spends nearly the entire film with a big smile plastered on her face – something that helps define their too-cool characters – but it never comes off as fake. She’s sexy and silly and fun.

The film itself is filled with pop-culture references. (The names of the characters are a reference to Nick and Nora, the witty and urbane sleuthing couple in a terrific series of films from the 1930’s and 1940’s.) They don’t always fly and sometimes the script is not quite as clever as it thinks and it leaves the actors flailing (but only for a moment; they always recover.) But there’s still that snappy energy that allows an actor to stop mid-pursuit and say “I can’t run anymore! Can’t we just have a car chase?” and not come off as trying too hard.

The film’s look is an attempt at creating a groovy style on a low budget. The costumes are swing flavored without being showy or overdone. The locations are obviously modern (It’s Portland, Oregon) but dressed up in subtle ways or shot from bizarre angles to accentuate the retro feel of the film. The outcome is that the movie takes place outside of time. It is clearly set today (email is mentioned) but the characters are living in some retro netherworld. Also worth pointing out is the beautiful Saul Bass-style opening credit sequence.

One other element that really helps the film set its tone is D Guy Baker’s terrific score. The loungey space-age music has a real light touch, using different styles all the time: jazzy here, sci-fi there, but always blending extremely well. For such a low-budget production this is one musical score that really stands out.

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A meteor is heading owing Mother planet. The sooner 40 minutes are the least severe. Astronomers are caught napping when schoolboy Wood spots something far-obsolete coming this conduct. Washington keeps a lid on it, until TV columnist Leoni stumbles across ‘the biggest book in history’. A year in the future, we last will and testament be destroyed, unless the US-Soviet organize occupation Messiah can swerve off the asteroid’s routine by detonating atomic explosions into in its marrow. It’s at this prong – when the President (Freeman) places the the way the ball bounces of the great into the hands of astronaut Duvall and his party – that the shushed picture remarkably goes into high-drive. They learn the value of self-Christian dogma oblation and togetherness. If chairman Leder fails to try to be the offensive stories come to life, she’s metrical sketchier on the brawny exact example blow the whistle on – her stance of social breakdown begins and ends with a traffic jam.

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A meteor is heading owing Mother earth. The first 40 minutes are the least severe. Astronomers are caught napping when schoolboy Wood spots something far-out coming this way. Washington keeps a lid on it, until TV columnist Leoni stumbles across ‘the biggest story in history’. A year in the future, we will be destroyed, unless the US-Soviet organize occupation Messiah can divert the asteroid’s routine by detonating nuclear explosions into in its core. It’s at this prong – when the President (Freeman) places the the way the ball bounces of the world into the hands of astronaut Duvall and his crew – that the silent picture really goes into high-drive. They learn the value of self-Christian religion oblation and togetherness. If director Leder fails to prove to be the personal stories come to life, she’s metrical sketchier on the brawny perfect example inform – her position of social breakdown begins and ends with a traffic jam.

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Judith (Hunter) is divorced and lonely. For all the intense conversations going on in her head, when she talks to Aptly (DeVito), the elevator man in her NY apartment building, it’s the first meaningful generous speak to she’s had in weeks. Pat is no one’s idea of a dreamboat, but he may justifiable be Judith’s most appropriate hope. The film namechecks Looking seeking Mr Goodbar and plays approve of a present-day revision of that at intervals disreputable story. Gone, mercifully, is the bloody justice; instead, there’s a very open, difficult-won sense of female enfranchising enacted both in salacious fantasy sequences and, more subtly, in the central, not-definitely-romantic relationship. Scriptwriter LaGravenese proves a whimsical, sympathetic gaffer (in his premier feature), but his playfulness every so often leads him astray. Inspired by Chekhov’s stories The Spoon and Misery, the movie’s too pretty to be more than remotely credible. Still, it’s justly felt and deliberate with some cultivatedness by the leads, Martin Donovan and the redoubtable Queen Latifah.

The other studios are making progress, but I still say Disney has a lock on reliably entertaining animated features. They produce at least one a year — "churning them out," you could say, except that implies an assembly-line mentality that is not accurate. These things are funny, joyous experiences, and not something the studio just slaps together to raise funds to keep Walt's corpse frozen.

"Lilo & Stitch" is not the instant classic "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid" were, and it may be time we stop comparing the modern films to those masterpieces. Frankly, without the songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, I doubt anything is going to come close to that level, and I'm glad Disney has given up the musical format in favor of more straightforward storytelling.

What "Lilo & Stitch" is, if not a masterpiece, is a highly watchable, giggly little story with a sweet edge to it.

We are introduced to two members of the standard old Disney category, the Misfits. One is Stitch (voice of writer/director Chris Sanders, when he speaks, which isn't often), a strange monster genetically engineered on another planet by an idiot scientist (he prefers the term "evil genius"). Stitch is designed to be destructive, super-strong, and highly intelligent. But mostly destructive. Imagine a combination of a gremlin, "Saturday Night Live's" Mr. Peepers, and any 2-year-old boy you've ever been acquainted with.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, there is Lilo (Daveigh Chase), a precocious little girl who likes to take pictures of fat tourists and who lies on the floor lip-synching to "Heartbreak Hotel" when she's depressed. Her parents are not around; she lives with her older sister Nani (Tia Carrere), who's at her wit's end in dealing with the mischievous, troublemaking Lilo.

Stitch's home planet, appalled at his genetic freakitude, imprisons him, but he escapes and lands on Earth. His creator (David Ogden Stiers, making his fifth voice appearance in a Disney theatrical release) and a wormy sidekick (Kevin McDonald) are dispatched to retrieve him, but are instructed to avoid being seen by the humans. Stitch knows he's a fugitive, and gets himself mistaken for a dog in order to be adopted by Lilo, thus giving him a hiding place.

If you have seen the exemplary 1999 film "The Iron Giant," you will be reminded of it many times here. There's a touch of "Men in Black," too, with a man in black (Ving Rhames) who is a social worker, and of course the numerous other Disney films that have involved partial families and social outcasts.

Formulaic? Yes, indeed. The plot is simple, and since Stitch has no family to miss him, there's no suspense over whether he'll choose to stay with Lilo or return to his home planet. Is there a reason for Nani to have a surfer friend named David? Not really. Do the wacky bounty hunters amount to anything? Again, no.

Where "Lilo & Stitch" gets it right is not in the destination, but in the journey, particularly as it relates to the title characters. Lilo is a charming, original little moppet, and her relationship with the world and with Stitch is genuinely touching. The voice work by little Daveigh Chase is utterly delightful.

Again, this is not a classic. It is solid, and it would stand up to a few viewings before losing its flavor, but it would lose it eventually. But it made me laugh, and it made me feel honest emotions, and that makes it successful.

Grade: B+

Rated PG, mild sci-fi action violence

Consummate with legendary James Stewart voicing disintegrated-down lawdog Wylie Burp, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is an winning sequel to the 1986 animated smash featuring the Russian outsider mouse.

The story picks up the plucky Fievel and family living in grim, turn-of-the-century Bronx, menaced by omnipresent cats. The expansive shift to the Old West is welcome, as is the slowing of the pace to accommodate the relaxed, drawling and almost comatose personality of Fievel’s hero/mentor Wylie Burp.

Fievel Goes West cleverly draws on the oft-expressed thought that the mythic West was largely an immigrant’s wide-eyed dream of what America should be, in opposition to hellish big-city reality and the old country left behind.

Phillip Glasser’s sweet rendition of the mouse’s voice is a major asset, as are the voice parts of Dom DeLuise, as Fievel’s scene-stealing companion, a scaredy-cat who turns brave; John Cleese, as the unctuously villainous Cat R. Waul; and Amy Irving, as the brassy saloon entertainer Miss Kitty. There isn’t much of a plot to speak of.

There’s something essentially deceiving in “Exit to Eden,” with the mix of titillating, comic and thriller elements diminishing whatever the original intention sway have been. Nonetheless, pic has a great come-on, and first curiosity should generate decent thwack office. But once suggestion gets out that it’s all sizzle and no gist, commercial prospects will evaporate.

The thread of the story is the track-down of Omar (Stuart Wilson), a notorious diamond smuggler, and his accomplice Nina (Iman). LAPD undercover detectives Sheila Kingston (Rosie O’Donnell) and Fred Lavery (Dan Aykroyd) have been one step away from apprehending them, stymied by the fact that no one knows what Omar looks like.

Luck intercedes when it’s learned that photographer Elliot Slater (Paul Mercurio), on a hunch, snapped the villain in action. But before the cops can get their hands on his negatives, Slater whisks away for a therapeutic vacation on the sexual fantasy island of Eden.

Built on a series of shaky coincidences, “Eden” descends into the preposterous as the cops and crooks both don disguises and try to meld into the scenery at the remote retreat in order to nab the visual evidence.

Director Garry Marshall might have been better served had he kept the dominance and submission antics as a backdrop rather than making them the focus of the film.

Elliot has come to the spa to confront his “aberrant” sexual inclinations and learn to commit. Somehow he’s redeemed via his contact with camp commander Mistress Lisa (Dana Delany). And, in true fairy tale fashion, the woman’s stern veneer is stripped away by true love and the good girl rises to the surface.

Marshall — who may actually believe in such pap, as evidenced by “Pretty Woman”– is undone by an inferior script and what would appear to be self-doubt.

He is a sucker for dumb jokes, and they diminish the credibility of the Eden locale. He also renders the situation toothless by assiduously avoiding the use of a single discouraging or four-letter word.

The irony is that in addressing American queasiness toward sexual matters, “Exit to Eden” reinforces the hoariest of stereotypes. In addition to righting the good-girl-gone-bad, he re-creates the female buddy character via O’Donnell. The rest of the principal cast can’t make much of the material.

Filmed in a slick, bright fashion, the picture is too visually obvious. It has the sophistication of an adolescent bathroom joke indifferently told. Saddled with a misguided sense of propriety, the lack of nerve or audacity in the endeavor renders truly shameful results.