In Brief

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO
PG-13, 99 minutes


There’s something about “Based on a true story” that just sucks the life right out of a movie. Such is the case of “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” a reasonably entertaining, sentimental slice of “mother knows best” that lands in theaters this week, dead on arrival. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this adaptation of Terry Ryan’s memoir about her contest entering, prize-winning mom, but there’s nothing that distinguishes it from, say, a Lifetime movie, either. And a Lifetime movie doesn’t cost you 10 bucks.


Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore, at her most freckled) is a long-suffering housewife whose attempts to raise her 10 children are continually thwarted by her husband, Kelly Ryan (Woody Harrelson, with prosthetic chipmunk cheeks). Kelly is a machinist whose dreams were crushed at a young age – a mild-mannered wimp by day, by night he Hulks out on booze, accidentally injuring his wife and kids whenever the opportunity arises. With the household finances chug-a-lugging down his throat, Evelyn makes ends meet by entering every promotional contest that comes her way. Her winnings provide much-needed windfalls and a sense among her children that whenever their backs are to the wall, mom will swoop in and save the day. And not once in the film does she disappoint them.


There’s something formulaic about Ms. Moore’s continual optimism and resourcefulness in the face of Mr. Harrelson’s nonstop failure and spinelessness, but since it’s based on a true story, who’s going to argue? The factual elements of the film come back to bite it in the last reel, however, with a sudden appearance by the 10, now elderly real-life Ryan children. There’s something crass about their willingness to prostitute themselves for Hollywood that makes you think their proper, white glove-wearing mother might not have approved.


– Grady Hendrix


THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED
PG, 115 minutes


‘The Greatest Game Ever Played” is a very boring movie about a very boring sport. The sport is golf, specifically the 1913 U.S. Open. The boredom comes from the plodding sobriety you generally get when a movie opens with the words: “This is a true story.”


Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) is a young caddy with big dreams: He wants to be a golfer like his hero, Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane), a stylish British ball blaster. After a very long beginning, the movie warms up a bit when Francis qualifies for the Open, much to the distress of the fancy pants who run the local golf club. Director Bill Paxton unleashes some lightly thrilling golf sequences around the 90-minute mark as Francis plays golf with everything at stake: his dad’s approval, the championship, a beautiful maiden, and a thumbed-nose to the Boston bluebloods.


It isn’t a bad movie, and it will bring a cheap tear or two to your eyes, but it’s about as exciting as sorting socks. That someone so obviously in love with the game as Mr. Paxton isn’t able to make it look very interesting is telling.


– Grady Hendrix


MIRRORMASK
PG, 101 minutes


This collaboration between veteran illustrator Dave McKean and comic book titan Neil Gaiman will frustrate everyone besides children and fanboys. “Mirror-Mask” features some undeniably striking and tasty eye candy, but the “Blue’s Clues”-caliber narrative and dialogue and the endless bluescreen cakewalking amount to less than a movie.


Through a combination of live actors and CGI, “MirrorMask” sketches the dream journey of Helena (Stephanie Leonidas), a teenaged circus performer. In a rebellious moment, she wishes her mother were dead, and the woman falls ill. The next night she finds herself wandering a shadowy, fantastical world, lost like Alice through the looking glass.


The drive to the plot – find the mask – serves to move Helena through the CGI phantasmagoria, accompanied by a masked sidekick (Jason Barry). Much of this world resembles the paintings of Salvador Dali and the literary dreamscapes of Bruno Schulz, full of monumental cubist landscapes, spindly shapes, and seething life forms from the edge of consciousness. Though derivative, the imagery has a distinctive look: a Gothic, misted-over quality, as if glimpsed through the low fog of half recollected memory. Mr. McKean’s creations include sphinxes with photographic human faces, a pair of floating Henry Moore-esque giants, and, best of all, Carnivale-cone-nosed monkeybirds.


The psychological allegories of Helena’s struggle with adolescent independence are as transparent as “The Cell.” But Mr. McKean’s touchstone is the “Labyrinth” genre of kiddie fantastic journeys rather than the hyper real sub-Damien Hirst nightmares of the 2000 thriller. He also adds his own graphic-art flavoring through trompe l’oeil masks, a scribbly elasticity borne out of ink-drawing aesthetics, and, in some shots, a flattened collage feel.


The plot development – something about an evil queen and a Helena doppelganger – are pressing but not threatening. Perhaps unintentionally, they evoke dream logic in eliding explanations and featuring missions and riddles. And like the “really weird dream” a friend recounts, “Mirror-Mask” is only intermittently interesting.


– Nicolas Rapold


SHOUJYO – AN ADOLESCENT
unrated, 132 minutes


“Shoujyo,” opening today at the Imagin-Asian, is the directorial debut of Japanese character actor Eiji Okuda, but he could have been a bit less obvious about it. Check out the wish-fulfillment plot: Tomokawa (Mr. Okuda), a roguish middle-aged cop, is propositioned by a beautiful 15-year-old, Yoko (Mayu Ozawa), and they fall in love – against the odds.


We’re assured Tomokawa’s a good guy, though, because he’s buddies with Yoko’s simple-minded older brother, Sukemasa. And we know their love is true and pure and right, because of some Japandering pseudo-mysticism about a phoenix tattoo on Tomokawa’s back, which moves young Yoko to masturbate to a mythology textbook at the library.


Alas, there are obstacles to their sublime union. One is Sukemasa, traumatized as a child when he caught his freshly widowed mother having sex. Seeing two dogs mating in a junkyard sets him off, and the slow-motion shot, like many of the film’s pivotal moments, may likewise traumatize viewers with a low tolerance for the ridiculous. He ultimately climbs a tower and threatens suicide over Yoko’s extracurricular activity.


Noble Tomokawa at first breaks things off to protect Sukemasa, but there’s also the bogeyman of his Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, who – why not – happens to be Yoko and Sukemasa’s estranged mother. The cartoonish hag harasses Tomokawa and (shame how this can happen) ties him up for forcible fellatio and sex.


How to explain this overloaded mess? Just as the ladies never say no to Tomokawa, all evidence suggests there was nobody to say no to Mr. Okuda. No to the pedantic 132-minute length, no to winging the camera placement in every shot, and definitely no to tying up loose ends with a romper-room shoving match at a memorial service. No, sir.


– Nicolas Rapold


DUMA
PG, 100 minutes


“Duma” is a throwback to children’s movies of a former era. In place of the current cloying pseudo-hipness and knowing winks to grown-ups, this cartoon has an unusual guilelessness and unassuming sweetness. The simple and at times profound story approaches issues such as loss, the nature of friendship, and growing up in the tradition of other “coming of age” films such as “Bambi” and “The Lion King.” Director Carroll Ballard, best known for the kids’ classic “The Black Stallion,” is entirely within his element, portraying the bond shared by people and animals amid a gorgeous South African backdrop.


“Duma” centers on the relationship between a boy named Xan (Alexander Michaeletos) and his cheetah. Xan and his father, Peter (Cambell Scott), adopt Xan as a cub, shortly after his mother is killed by a pack of lions in a gruesome and heartbreaking sequence. They raise the cheetah on their sprawling farm as one might raise a housecat, naming it Duma, the Swahili word for “cheetah.” After a period of relative bliss, Peter tells his son it’s time to return Duma to a preservation – where he can better live his life as a wild animal. Before they can carry out the plan, however, Peter falls seriously ill and suddenly dies. Xan’s mother, Thandi (Mary Makhatho), must move the family to Johannesburg, where Xan is bullied by a group of nasty schoolboys. Xan and Duma, each bereft of a parent, then set out together on the journey that in happier times would have included Xan’s father. Along the way, their paths intertwine with that of a mysterious man with dubious motives named Rip (Eamonn Walker). They also encounter every dangerous animal and hazardous landscape imaginable.


If this sounds like a lot to pack into an hour and a half, then you can begin to see where “Duma” stumbles. Through much of the film, the audience is treated as though it suffers from a collective case of attention deficit disorder. Scenes in which danger is met and surmounted come one after another, giving parts of the movie an odd, videogame-like quality. Still, the film’s heart is in the right place, and it is hard not to feel a sense of affection for a boy and animal who travel together through the wilderness and emerge with a hard won maturity.


– Kevin Lam


THREE DAYS OF RAIN
unrated, 98 minutes


In his feature debut, writer-director Michael Meredith sets his sights on making a Paul Thomas Anderson-style tapestry out of dispatches from “real life.” The resulting mess proves that when it comes to making vignette-driven films, amateurs need not apply – even if they’ve got Peter Falk and Blythe Danner in tow, and Wim Wenders “presenting” their film.


The action takes place during a three-day window of bad weather in present-day Cleveland. The six interwoven episodes feature a parade of unfortunates that includes a heroin addict, an old alcoholic, a bereaved cabbie, and a mentally disabled employee. The episodes are loosely based on some of Chekhov’s short stories, but Mr. Meredith displays none of his knack for swift dramatization. The only scene that feels at all Chekhovian – a dinner party argument over a homeless man – soon disintegrates into the same old stagy hysterics.


Even Altman has a hard time making this kind of picture, and Mr. Meredith is no Altman. He underscores everything with endless smooth jazz, meant to derive from a local public radio station but sounding an awful lot like the track to a film school project. The overly dramatic lighting constantly calls attention to itself, which in turn calls attention to the fact that Cleveland looks remarkably like a soundstage. But the main problem is the hopelessly confused material. Mr. Meredith comes out of the theater. Hasn’t he heard that Chekhov is hard to do?


– Joy Goodwin

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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