Author: Susan Ellis

In an episode of Cops last year, a police officer encountered a man who had been beaten up by a female friend because he had a voodoo altar. The woman had left the scene and the man had locked himself out of his house, so the police officer helped him get in through a window. Then, with as much cajoling as is humanly possible, the man convinces the officer to come in and see his pet snakes. The cop admits to being very afraid but goes in to see the man’s collection of 20 or so snakes all heaped in one slithering mass on the floor of a closet. Now that’s entertainment.

Then there’s Showtime, a smarter-than-average comedy (emphasis on average) starring Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, and Rene Russo. Packaged as a spoof on reality programming, Showtime is more of a spoof on buddy/cop films (think the Lethal Weapon series, both Rush Hours) yet is a buddy/cop film (think all three Screams). It cannibalizes itself with a big fat wink.

De Niro stars as Mitch Preston, a gruff, longtime LAPD detective. How gruff? After a drug bust gone wrong, Mitch shoots out the lens of a TV camera, garnering bad publicity for the department and the promise of a lawsuit. But Chase Renzi (Russo), producer for the network that owns the shot-out camera, gets a whiff of a hit. She wants gruff, she wants bullets, she wants Mitch in exchange for dropping that pesky lawsuit.

Mitch balks but money talks, so the next order of business is finding Mitch a partner. It’s an easy enough task as Trey Sellars (Murphy) puts himself right under Chase’s nose. Trey is a patrol officer, though he wants to be an actor. That he failed a recent audition to play a cop is no big thing. That Trey inadvertently sabotaged Mitch’s drug bust (which led to the bullet in the camera, which led to the producer being up in his face) is a big thing. Mitch despises Trey, and that is what they call tension, and that is what they call good television.

The point of the program, titled Showtime part of a catchphrase Trey uses to pump himself up before a bust: inhale, exhale, repeat “It’s showtime!” is to keep it real. What’s real is tracking down the maker of a supergun that can not only pierce a bullet-proof vest but also destroy a house. The detective stuff, however, needs to be squeezed in somewhere between shooting the show’s promos and the mandatory confession-booth time.

If you’re looking for skewered conventions, Showtime‘s got them: talk of a “loose cannon,” conflict with the police chief in which a desk gets pounded, the why-I’m-a-cop speech, sliding over a car hood, etc. Plus the TV execs are aptly wired. Chase is there to record Mitch and Trey as they are, but if Mitch’s apartment doesn’t quite pop out on camera, what’s wrong with giving the place a makeover complete with dog? The sugar on top comes in the form of cameos by William Shatner and Johnnie Cochran. Shatner plays himself, using his experience on T.J. Hooker to direct the men in the show’s commercials. He counsels on the importance of the eyebrow arch and the gamely belly-flops on a car hood for the sake of art. Cochran’s part came about when an actor playing one of De Niro’s collars ad-libbed that he was going to hire Johnnie Cochran, and so the filmmakers did. Undoubtedly charismatic, Cochran seems stifled here (and shouldn’t he be in Memphis suing somebody?).

At the beginning of the movie, Mitch is shown scrawling out the tenets of police work. He tells his audience that he has never in his 28 years on the force jumped from one roof to roof or done much of what is seen on television. The joke, of course, is that, like checking items off a list, he proceeds to do most of what he’s denounced. These riffs are all logically funny, but none is a howler. And there’s no arguing with the performances. Both De Niro and Murphy are good, and Russo is particularly crisp. But, ultimately, Showtime is hemmed in by the very devices it mocks.

It’s a pity, really. All this fuss over a gaudy engagement ring a bright-blue mood stone, to be exact, and the object of desire of both a petty thief and the woman who was presented with it just minutes earlier. He demands, she demurs, and so, with the pop of a gun, she falls and lets loose a pool of blood that matches her red hat.

A pity, too, The Time Machine, the latest adaptation of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi novel and a ho-hum-er of a movie if ever there was one.

The action begins in 1899 in New York. Professor Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) is an absent-minded professor covered in chalk dust and enamored of gadgets. Time flies when he’s absorbed in his formulas, but he does allow a lapse when it comes to Emma (Sienna Guillory). He meets her for ice skating, pops the question, then loses her over the ring.

Now there is no more time for lapses. Alexander works on his formulas for two years until he pulls back a curtain to reveal his machine, a brass number that looks sort of like a luggage cart at better hotels. He climbs in, sets the date, and is suddenly back at the ice pond, back in front of Emma. Alexander is careful not to retrace his steps from that awful night, but that doesn’t stop Emma from ending up the same bloody mess. And Alexander accepts this. He can’t change the past, but what is nagging his scientific mind now is why.

So it’s back into the time machine and into the future. The year is 2030, a year he figures the time riddle would have long been solved. He first encounters a buzzing big city with a billboard barking the wonders of living on the moon and then a sarcastic librarian contained within a pane of glass. The librarian offers his help. Alexander asks for reference materials and is given instead a roll of the eyes and an impatient lecture on the impossibility of time travel.

Alexander, unsatisfied, ventures further into the future and further still to the year 802701. Still no answers. But if it was the past he was looking for, this appears to be it no signs of progress here, just a primitive society living in straw abodes that cling like cicada shells to the sides of an enormous canyon. The simplicity and the near-nudity of these people appear idyllic to Alexander, but idyllic it’s not. They are terrorized by the Morlocks, underground dwellers part human, part beast, part stone who hunt them for food and breeding purposes. Alexander knows he can’t do anything about the past, but, he thinks, maybe he can do something about this.

Imagine the boon of The Time Machine for production designer Oliver Scholl and the various costumers who were entrusted with working up and dressing so many different worlds, from turn-of-the-20th-century to post-apocalypse. While none of it is mind-blowingly original, it is a real show of effort (an effort apparently not passed on to the makeup of Uber-Morlock played by Jeremy Irons, who, in white face paint, black lipstick, and a long white wig, looks like an elderly Marilyn Manson). It seems, however, that all these different vistas were budgeted as part of the dramatic thrust, a miscalculation given the always swelling number of movies set in the future.

Directed by Simon Wells, H.G.’s great-grandson, The Time Machine is his first live-action film after countless animated features. It makes sense then that this movie feels so flatly harmless (and even sounds clichéd with its tired, look-at-the-wonder score) and appears to have been aimed narrowly at 12-year-olds, who can get some titillation from the shapely natives while not being scared to death by the Morlocks dragging those same natives squirming and squealing under the sand.

As for Pearce, he doesn’t seem right for such a pristinely square picture. In last year’s absorbing agitator Memento, he played his memory-deficient character confused and bold. There’s not much of a switch for The Time Machine, though his approach is as artificial as the good-chap accent he affects for Alexander.

There’s no topping rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube’s scowl. The straight line of his mouth spanning his face and his eyes half-closed give even the most matter-of-fact moments an air of menace. So in All About the Benjamins, which he stars in and co-wrote with Ronald Lang, when he flashes a smile and when he really gets tough, it feels like a gift, like a little pulse of authenticity. But let’s not get too deep, because All About the Benjamins is all about the surface a workable action film/buddy movie that expands not a single boundary.

Ice Cube stars as Bucum Jackson, a bounty hunter who has about had it with the low pay he gets for collecting lowlifes. His latest gig is to deliver Reggie Wright (Mike Epps), a small-time con man well-known to Bucum. Bucum catches up with Reggie just after his target, with the aide of two elderly women, has lifted a few sundries from a store just nickel-and-dime stuff, nothing Winona Ryder-ish. While still in the store, Reggie completes a legit errand: buying a lottery ticket for his girlfriend.

There Reggie is, holding his bag of stolen goods, when up comes Bucum. There’s a chase, some taunting, and then a whole lot of blood. Seems the pair stumbled onto the tail end of a diamond heist, a heist that went wrong and has both the bad guys and Bucum looking for Reggie, and then Bucum and Reggie looking for the bad guys who happen to (unknowingly) have Reggie’s girlfriend’s lottery ticket.

You can guess where it goes from there the bickering, reconciliation, more bickering, a car chase, flying bullets, a fight on a speedboat, and a couple of harshly violent scenes. Epps, as the comic side of the duo, is a gifted mimic, while Ice Cube is, of course, Ice Cube, one of the grimmest straight men ever.

The hype Black Hawk Down has received is well-deserved. This is a film that hangs on, right at your gut.

Black Hawk Down is based on actual events that occurred in Somalia in 1993. A civil war has left the country’s citizens starved. Marines are brought in to see that humanitarian supplies reach the intended target. After the Marines depart, a Somali warlord resumes stealing the supplies. The remaining peacekeepers, a small group of Rangers and members of Delta Force, are sent on a mission to capture the warlord and his top lieutenant. The mission immediately devolves into the worst kind of chaos, so the soldiers’ aim changes from getting the warlord to getting themselves and everybody they brought with them out.

The tensions are set early: chest-beating among the Rangers and the Delta Force, squabbles between soldiers and their superiors, the question of American soldiers in Africa. And then all that dissolves in the melee of gunfire and the rush of angry Somalis after two Black Hawk helicopters (of the title) crash. None of that matters within the tangle of fear and blood and bullets.

Sentiment — though heroics and purpose are given lip service — is largely ignored for something more visceral — survival. These soldiers start out on an almost workaday assignment. They’re told what to do, and they do it. They’re scared, sure, but certainly not prepared for the horror that meets them. One man squeals, “They’re shooting at us!” His superior responds with irritation, “Well, shoot back.” In one scene, a helicopter hovers over a mob of Somalis making its way to a downed helicopter and its captive occupants. The Rangers are on their way, but no amount of good, American know-how can out-step the crowd, and no amount of wishing can save the injured pilot surrounded by those who see his value as an American.

Of the cast — Josh Hartnett, Sam Shepard, Ewan McGregor, among others — no single performance stands out. It all works toward the feel of teamwork. That these men are in this mess together, pride be damned. Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Hannibal), through little talk and a lot of action, has achieved something rather remarkable in films these days: honesty.

When the word is spoken in The Shipping News, you know it’s time to pack it up and go home. There’s nothing more to see here, except more of the same, and that same, while not flat-out awful, is tainted by that word — magic.

The film, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx, is about a man who returns to his ancestral home to find what made him who he is. Kevin Spacey stars as Quoyle — no first name necessary — who has lived his life suffering from the disappointments of others. His father was cruel to him and his wife was crueler. They both die at approximately the same time, and with their demises comes the arrival of Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench). She’s moving back to Newfoundland and persuades her nephew and his young daughter to return with her. And so Quoyle, a man whose recurring dream is about drowning, moves to a place where everybody has a boat and into his forebears’ house that leaks and groans with the wind and the past.

Quoyle, a former inksetter, gets a job as a journalist at the local paper because the publisher has a “feeling” about him. The publisher turns out to be right. Quoyle has a nose for prose and one-ups the managing editor. Feeding his new self-esteem is his girlfriend, who is a little less sad than he is, a woman who goes by the name of Wavey (Julianne Moore). But Quoyle isn’t home free, as it were. He’s in Newfoundland by destiny to discover those deep, dark family secrets.

Those secrets, it turns out, are deeper and darker than most, but director Lasse Hallstrîm metes them out in a matter-of-fact way that is chillier than Newfoundland’s weather. Hallstrîm seems more interested in the setting than in the drama. His small town is filled with quirkier-than-thou sorts who believe in premonitions and karma and cut their words short and find some way to work a “d” sound into every syllable. Spacey plays it soft-spoken, a no-brainer performance for him. Moore, for her part, is way too physically elegant to play such a sad sack, while Dench is almost a non-presence, popping up from time to time to spit out a bit of angry wisdom.

One ticket to Behind Enemy Lines entitles the holder to 1) an ordinary war movie and 2) the need of a barf bag.

Owen Wilson stars as Chris Burnett, a Navy pilot bored out of his skull doing next to nothing on an aircraft carrier during the Bosnian conflict. Burnett is like a kid too smart for school, unchallenged and idle enough to get into trouble. Bad behavior brings him before Admiral Leslie Reigart (Gene Hackman), who slaps his hand and tells him to shape up. Burnett responds with the least amount of respect possible, repeating his desire to leave the military ASAP.

But first First, Reigart sends Burnett and another pilot on a reconnaissance mission on Christmas Day, a yank on Burnett’s chain to let him know who’s in charge. Burnett and pilot fly off-course, taking photos of something they aren’t supposed to see. They get shot down, and while Burnett climbs a hill for better radio response, his partner is discovered and executed. A rescue of Burnett is arranged and then canceled when another admiral from the U.N. mission nixes Reigart’s plan, worried that it will ruin an already shaky peace agreement. Burnett is told to make his way to a safer pick-up point. When he fusses, Reigart says, “You’ve been shot down; life is tough.” And about to get a whole lot tougher when Burnett has to dodge a particularly determined sniper and Reigart’s efforts to get his soldier out are undermined.

Snipers and weak admirals aside, Behind Enemy Lines feels nearly tension-free and peculiarly clean for a war movie. The players issue goddammits as things get thick, and when it really gets nasty, they pull out the F-word. And Burnett, too, is wholesome, not a military roughneck gung-ho to spill blood. Wilson fills the role with a good-natured charm, and the film is better for it. You root for Burnett because he’s a remarkable guy for being so unremarkable. But even the movie’s simple message about bravery and good vs. evil gets a little garbled in the telling. The pacing of the film, the way its elements are laid out ultimately make it more about Burnett saving his own ass.

(As for the timing of Behind Enemy Lines‘ release, the film gains a tiny bit more resonance: The limited violence, which would have been practically unnoticeable pre-September, now seems more horrible — a man melted away in slo-mo by a land mine, the viscera of a crashing plane wrecking the landscape, the ruined lives of those who remain.)

The “punch” was clearly saved for the visuals. Director John Moore was picked for the gig on the strength of a commercial he did for a video game, and his background shows like panty lines. Burnett must make it from point A to point B without getting squashed, and the audience views him as a 2-D figure manipulated to go up a hill and down a hill and into a building and onto a speeding truck and so on. And while the episode in which Burnett’s plane is being chased by two heat-seeking missiles is exciting, the jarring camerawork at other points is just nausea-inducing. There’s nothing thrilling in needing to boot.

Though Gene Hackman appears to be in every movie made these days, he is not in Ed Burns’ latest, Sidewalks of New York, the director/writer’s rather bleak ode to love in the big city.

The film begins with various characters telling us how they lost their virginity. Each sounds off a tale of bad decision-making involving too much alcohol or a partner much too old or a partner much too paid to do the deed. The one sweet “losing it” story we hear has a confidence-shattering caveat. And so it goes.

The characters are: Maria (Rosario Dawson), a divorced schoolteacher squeamish about getting involved again; Ben (David Krumholtz), Maria’s ex-husband, a musician and doorman desperate for affection; Ashley (Brittany Murphy), a 19-year-old college student with a self-defeating thing for married men; Griffin (Stanley Tucci), dentist, Ashley’s lover, and all-round cheat; Annie (Heather Graham), Griffin’s wife, who doesn’t like to talk about it; and Tommy (Ed Burns), a recently dumped and available TV producer. Bringing up the rear is Carpo (Dennis Farina), Tommy’s over-tanned boss and dispenser of obnoxious advice, such as cutting out “the wife and kids crap” and putting cologne where the sun doesn’t shine.

As the characters enter and exit each others’ lives and beds, they consult the camera to offer their philosophies on topics varying from sex on the first date to the separation of love and sex. This mockumentary set-up doesn’t entirely make sense, however, given that the characters separately interviewed at the beginning of the movie meet each other later by chance. But that is neither here nor there.

Where it is is the state of love and emotion today and being decent enough to be loyal. The film is rather pessimistic, but Burns does show enough faith in human nature to give those their due, whether it’s bliss or loneliness.

For a movie as lazy-draggy as Rock Star, it has moments that are true heartbreakers.

That’s because it taps into that thing that makes each and every one of us — admit it! — take a hairbrush, tilt a hip, and

sing, “Freebird, yeah,” or “‘Cause I got high, la di dah,” or, God forbid, “Oops, I did it again.” Call it innate. It’s about having millions

of people love you and some detest you. It’s about having your picture taken and your autograph sought. It’s about lust and

conspicuous consumption. It’s about having it all. But it’s not mere celebrity — think about all those actors who want to sing (hello, Keanu). To be

a rock star is to create something, then put it out there, then reap what you sow.

Rock Star is about a man too scared to

create. Instead, he hollowly re-creates, and then, through dumb luck and a pair of

big-haired hussies, this ordinary chucklehead lives his dream.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Chris Cole, a Pittsburgh office cog who still lives at home with his parents. But when night falls,

Chris evolves into Bobby Beers, lead singer of a British metal group called Steel Dragon. Chris’ tribute band, Blood Poison, have the moves,

the looks, the sounds, everything down. And if they don’t, tempers flare and fists fly — among the members of the group. This turns to

that, and Chris is kicked out of the band. He’s sad, his guitarist says, that he’s living the life of another person. It’s time to do his own thing.

Even Chris’ beyond-devoted girlfriend Emily (Jennifer Aniston) suggests the same in the gentlest manner.

Then, the phone call. The guitarist from Steel Dragon wants Chris in L.A. the next day. It seems that the hallowed lead

singer Bobby Beers is on the outs — perhaps, worse yet for the band, he’s also out of the closet. In to replace him are all those wannabes,

including Chris. He nails the audition and gets the gig. He is

the new lead singer of Steel Dragon, and without so much as a peep in front

of the larger public, he changes from Chris to Izzy and becomes the rock star he’s always dreamed of being. But among the

percussions, there are repercussions. Chris realizes that even while living the good life he’s still a cog.

The story of Rock Star is loosely based on what happened with the band Judas Priest in the early ’90s: lead singer bumped;

ordinary Joe replaces him. But the real story was too difficult to secure, given issues concerning song rights and cooperation with Judas

Priest. Consequently, Rock Star goes for a sweeping representation of the life —

three-ways and Batmobiles — wrapped in the bigger theme of a

man who got his (good) and then got his (bad).

It works to a degree: the shocking lasciviousness, the excessive makeup, the fuzzy morals via a bandmate on dialysis,

and the road manager who walks away from an ideal life, too afraid to be normal.

And then there’s that defining moment. Chris, now Izzy, is posing for his first publicity shots with the band. As the other

Steel Dragon members ooze disdain and menace, Chris can’t help but smile smile smile. He is there. And then there’s the flip side: the sense

of awful wastefulness. It’s summed up in a cameo by Rachel Hunter, model and ex-wife of Rod Stewart. She plays a band-member

wife relegated to the “wife limo,” while the men ride the tour bus and

indulge in whatever they see fit. The women in the limo explain

to Emily that such allowances are what make such relationships work. Each time the camera lands on Hunter, though, she registers

a truly sad fatigue and embarrassment, as if the role hits too close to home.

Director Stephen Herek (Bill and Ted’s Excellent

Adventure) takes all this material and presents it as “material,” meaning

that, except for those genuine moments — Chris’ uncontrollable smile, Hunter’s grimace — emotion, excitement come as canned as

extra-strength hairspray. The audience is dragged rather than engaged, and sometimes attention may drift.

Rule number one in Two Can Play That

Game: Each man and woman should have a chubby friend who can give it to

them straight — that is, take it to the gutter. Can we talk about laying pipe and smacking booty?

Two Can Play That Game stars Vivica A. Fox as Shanté, the Jag-driving superwoman with her own-bought property and a

confidence that comes from being young and having curves. Shanté is the together one in her group of girlfriends. If a man’s cheating,

loitering, or all-around no-gooding, Shanté tells them to kick the dog to the curb. Then, Shanté’s forced to take her own advice when she

sees her man Keith (Morris Chestnut) wiggling on the dance floor after he told her he had to work late.

Hence the Ten Day Plan, Shanté’s scheme to lure her man, hook him, maybe struggle a little, and then reel him in. Trouble

is, Keith has Tony (Anthony Anderson) on his side. Tony is squeaky, large, and full of advice. For every move Shanté makes, Tony suggests

a counter-move for Keith. It’s an intricate, sometimes cruel game. The aim: to stay on top or suffer.

Yet, the draw of Two Can Play That

Game isn’t what it’s about. The performances and the trash-talking are the strengths of

this film. The girlfriends and the boyfriends mix it up and take it low. Anderson especially has a comic presence that is silly and endearing.

Two Can Play That Game is a trifle and goofy. But don’t count it out as a date movie. At least you’ll have something to talk

about when it’s over.

The exposure to Julia Roberts these days is so intense that when you look at a white surface you see her outline. One of my coworkers, however, complained not of too much Julia but of the way Roberts and co-star Billy Crystal kept looking at each other funny in all the print and TV promotions for their new film, American Sweethearts.

American Sweethearts is a look-at-each-other-funny kind of film. It?s a romantic comedy that yearns to be one of those romps of yore. The rallying cry on the set was surely ?Think broad!? And if the elements of American Sweethearts don?t completely come together, it?s good enough and even funny enough.

The driving idea is that Hollywood people are different from you and me. They are selfish and odd and sometimes a little evil though not a kill-you evil. Stuck in the middle of all the craziness is everywoman Kiki (Roberts), assistant/sister to Gwen (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a so-so actress with a sexpot pout and an inner focus that threatens to one day turn her cross-eyed. Gwen has been on the receiving end of a lot of scorn lately, having dumped her husband and co-star Eddie (John Cusack) for the sweaty Spaniard Hector (Hank Azaria). The last movie Gwen and Eddie made together is just being released and has got to be a hit ? for the almost has-beens Gwen and Eddie and for the nearly bankrupt studio. Complicating matters is Hal Weidmann (Christopher Walken), the director who demands that the final print of his film be seen first not by the studio but by the press. Enter Lee Phillips (Crystal), the film?s publicist, who swears he?ll get Gwen and Eddie together for the press junket to end all press junkets.

All forces gather in a hotel in Las Vegas. Gwen and Eddie, who?s been pried from an ashram-like ?wellness? center, grin and bear it during their countless interviews. In the wings is Lee, orchestrating ? and stalling for the film?s arrival ? like mad. If Eddie?s caught on security cameras doing something nasty outside of Gwen?s cabana, good for Lee and the movie. If Eddie seems to be on the cusp of suicide, better still, just make sure it gets to the press. All the while, Gwen moans and frets about how this reflects on her; good thing Kiki is there not to just lend support but to fetch her mouthwash as well.

American Sweethearts, co-written by Crystal, is near-bursting with little jabs at Hollywood. Gwen is part-Liz Taylor, part-Russell-Crowe-era Meg Ryan who can dish it out but can?t and will not take it. Eddie, in turn, is a tortured mess looking for meaning in life through a fistful of herbs and nonsensical chants. In fallback position are Lee and his boss Dave Kingman (a particularly gestural Stanley Tucci), both gifted backstabbers with varying degrees of sincerity, plus the director Hal, a reclusive multimillionaire genius a la Kubrick, and Eddie?s ?wellness guide? (Alan Arkin), who releases his troubled charge in exchange for a bitchin? set of wheels.

Then there?s Kiki. She won?t take butter on her toast, and she leaves out the toast, too. A former fatty (Roberts is seen briefly in a fat suit), she is the pushed-around girl next door with a great laugh and cuddly charm. The fetching she?s done for sister Gwen was fine 60 pounds ago, but now she needs some play and that neurotically earnest Eddie is looking mighty fine, even while mooning over her sister.

In the end, Roberts, playing it straight, comes off rather thin amid all this activity. And the raison d?etre, the romance between Kiki and Eddie in this romantic comedy, appears to have been shoehorned in. But if there?s a message in American Sweethearts, it?s that nothing about Hollywood makes sense. Don?t think, just watch.

When I make my movie, the thief/detective/government operative will be
performing his next-to-last job. That way, there will be no angst; all will be
nice and easy.

Indeed, The Score begins with the hero on his next-to-last job, but it
s not easy. It s hard. There s tinkering and drilling and an innocent pot-
smoker is threatened.

Robert De Niro stars as Nick, a professional thief living in Montreal. He s
made a nice living. He s got a swell little jazz club, a fine apartment, and
an even finer girlfriend in Diane (Angela Bassett). And while he can still
crack a safe like a pecan shell, he s grown weary. And he s wary of the latest
offer from Max (Marlon Brando), his middleman. What Max proposes violates two
of Nick s hard and fast rules: work alone and never work in your own backyard.
The Score? Steal an ancient and priceless scepter locked away in the
Montreal customs house, with the help of Jack (Edward Norton), a nobody from
nowhere, as Nick sees it.

Yet the reward is too rich to resist. Nick can retire and pay off the bar and
live with Diane a perfectly humdrum existence. So he signs on and works with
Jack, figuring out all the custom house s nooks and studying the latest in
safe technology. It will be a precision affair, where timing is everything and
the man holding the watch is Jack, who is still trying to earn Nick s trust.

As a movie plot, the plight of the man who wishes to go out with either a bang
or a whisper, as the case may be, must be in the double digits now. This isn t
an issue if a film s got the goods — a pizzazzy story, smart performances,
wicked action. The Score doesn t quite have it, despite its pedigree of
De Niro, Basset, Norton, and Brando. There are some bright moments that never
really add up to momentum. The film gets bogged down in the planning stage,
coming off slowly and carefully, just like Nick, and where s the excitement in
that?

There are no real complaints about the performances. While Bassett is hardly
on-screen, Brando comes off as Capote-esque, looking pleased at the change of
scenery. And Norton, as the raw thief, is too cool to betray any eagerness.
Yet when he gets slapped down time and time again by Nick, the wounded pride
flashing across his face gives a hint of what he s about. When it comes to De
Niro, he s as stable as ever, though he seems rather long in the tooth to be
performing the cat-burglar gymnastics of this part. It isn t until the very
end that De Niro s strength comes through, and it s all mental as he taunts
his charge Jack, who never really appreciated that old line about minding your
elders.

If happiness is a warm puppy, then the film Cats & Dogs is downright ecstatic. It s clearly made by dog people, though with a keen appreciation for the feline attitude.

The film, which uses real dogs and cats (in addition to puppets and computer animation and surely a whole lot of patience), is a real kid-pleaser. Dogs soar through the air and cats drive cars. And since animals can t really complain, the filmmakers take advantage of strict stereotypes. Dogs are loyal, whereas cats have their own agenda. That agenda, as set forth in this film, is to control the world. Long ago, cats ruled over humans. That reign was destroyed by those humans dogs, who chased the cats away. Some thousands of years later, it s payback time. At the fore is Mr. Tinkles (voiced by Sean Hayes), a fluffy white cat with a pink, heart-shaped nose and a nasty disposition aggravated by a caretaker who thrills at dressing him in bonnets and bows.

Enter Lou (Tobey Maguire), a beagle puppy with a yen for adventure and the good luck to be adopted by Mrs. Brody (Elizabeth Perkins). Mrs. Brody s husband, Professor Brody (Jeff Goldblum), is busily perfecting a cure for people allergic to dogs, clearing the way for anyone who wants to pick up a pooch without fear of runny noses and puffy eyes. Great news for dogs, though the Brodys son Scott (Alexander Pollock) couldn t care less about Lou and just wishes his father would spend more time with him.

If you re getting the feeling that there s a lesson to be learned here, you d be right. But first, Mr. Tinkles must stop Professor Brody from completing his formula, and the dogs must stop Mr. Tinkles from stopping Professor Brody. And while the dogs get the morals, the cats are the true stars of the show. Ninja cats approach the Brody home and parachute in for attack; a Russian cat spits up an arsenal of hairballs; and Mr. Tinkles gets all the best lines ( Be still, so I can crush you ). Comparatively, the dogs are rather dull: Butch (Alec Baldwin), a canine operative and bitter ex-pet, and Sam (Michael Clarke Duncan), a sheepdog who can t see because of the hair in his eyes. Yawn, stretch.

The Golden Bowl, starring Uma Thurman, is the perfect antidote to the summer blockbuster. Outbursts are kept to a minimum and most of the acting is done from the neck up.

There?s something to be said for escaping the effects, the noise, the color blast of Pearl Harbor and Moulin Rouge. Merchant-Ivory?s latest period piece, The Golden Bowl, is so polite.

The film, based on the Henry James novel, is all about manners. Outbursts are kept to a minimum, whereas the metaphors flow; most of the acting is done from the neck up.

The Golden Bowl is set in turn-of-the-century England, where Americans Adam Verver (Nick Nolte) and his daughter Maggie (Kate Beckinsale) have settled. Adam is filthy rich and cleaning up a bit by buying rare European art to take back to American City and put in a museum, whether Americans want it or not. Three days before Maggie is to be married to the Italian Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northam), Amerigo meets with his former lover Charlotte (Uma Thurman). Though they still have feelings for each other, they are both poor and cannot marry. Charlotte, it turns out, is Maggie?s best friend from boarding school; Maggie knows nothing of Charlotte?s past with Amerigo.

Maggie and Amerigo have a son together and are happy, but Maggie cannot restrain the guilt she feels over leaving her father alone. Maggie invites Charlotte to watch over Adam, and soon the pair marry — all the better for Charlotte and Amerigo to start their affair where they left off.

Emotions and heartache are expressed through a modern dance piece, a dream, the legend of long-ago ancestors, and most notably, the golden bowl of the title. Like the pair of couples, the bowl is beautiful and precious, a thing to protect and cherish, but the bowl has a flaw. For much of the movie, the story is told through its symbols as the actors betray nothing more than a tic of an eye or a well-timed turn. Thurman, particularly, goes from smug to paranoid to absolutely desperate to smug again smoothly and expertly.

The Golden Bowl highlights the art of subterfuge. Everything?s a plan or a scheme, and matters are tied up with barely a ripple. The film seems positively wan next to the similarly plotted The House of Mirth, but it makes its point oh-so quietly.