Also this issue: Lost and Found A documentary about Terry Gilliam's failure spells success for its creators -- and maybe for Gilliam as well. -Sam Adams Cops and Bobbles Dark Blue drops the ball. -Cindy Fuchs Get Your War On How to lose a Civil War cinephile in 210 minutes. -Ryan Godfrey Screen Picks -Sam Adams Continuing Repertory Film Showtimes

February 20-26, 2003

movie shorts

New

THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE

Director Alan Parker's new film argues -- vigorously and sanctimoniously -- against the death penalty. Kevin Spacey plays David Gale, a philosophy professor and anti-death penalty activist currently on death row in Texas for the rape and murder of his colleague, the significantly named Constance (Laura Linney). With four days to live, he invites a famously principled reporter (named Bitsey and wanly played by Kate Winslet) to interview him so that he might tell his side. Her uncovering of the truth is painfully slow, especially since the mystery is wholly unsurprising and dependent on glaring character inconsistencies. Perhaps worse, the film's argument against capital punishment -- it's bad because mistakes can be made -- is needlessly overstated (the activists are set against a smarmy governor ominously named Hardin; Gale's lawyer screwed up repeatedly; pro-death penalty interviewees appear in grainy TV close-ups, etc.). Definitely worse, the focus on Gale -- privileged and white, even if alcoholic and fired for having sex with an ex-student (bad choice, that) -- leaves out the vast majority of death row cases: black and Hispanic men without money or choices concerning representation.--Cindy Fuchs (Bala; Ritz 16; UA Main St; UA Riverview)

LOST IN LA MANCHA

Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's documentary witnesses art in the un-making -- the disintegration and eventual collapse of Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, what was to have been his first production from his own script in over a decade. The production begins with a budget so tight nothing can go wrong, and then practically everything does: actors don't show up, locations turn out to be uncomfortably close to NATO bombing ranges and Gilliam's Quixote turns out to be too frail to ride a horse. Fulton and Pepe, former Temple grad students who filmed Gilliam's production of Twelve Monkeys for their documentary The Hamster Factor, have what looks like unrestricted access, eavesdropping on conflicts, tantrums and moments of utter despair, and their detailed approach helps make the case that even an auteur as singular as Gilliam needs a team. Gilliam's detractors might watch the film and see evidence of the mania for minutae that dooms all his films, but even those with a passing interest in things Gilliam will find this up-close look at the death of a dream tough to watch. In animated sequences by locals Chaim Bianco and Stefan Avalos, La Mancha points out that for all his out-of-control rep, Gilliam is "a responsible enfant terrible," and if it doesn't exactly make its subject heroic, the film is certainly in his corner. The "Coming Soon" trailer for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote which follows Lost in La Mancha's credits cements the symbiosis. --Sam Adams. (See Sam Adams' interview with directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe on p. 23.) (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

OLD SCHOOL

The premise has promise, in an I-love-the-'80s teen movie redux way: The near-campus house of newly single Mitch (Luke Wilson) is rezoned by the butthole dean (Jeremy Piven) for college-related use only after a housewarming party gets too raucous, so married but terminally juvenile best friends Frank (Will Ferrell) and Beanie (Vince Vaughn) convince Mitch to turn the house into a rule-flouting, cross-generational fraternity. What should follow, and what the trailer promises, are beer-soaked, increasingly transgressive shenanigans involving hazing, sex and that old-time rock 'n' roll. What actually follows is anarchic only in the sense that it's badly structured, arbitrary and -- despite Ferrell's ample and omnipresent bare backside -- half-assed. Why, for example, does the dean threaten the frat's charter by making them debate economic policy with James Carville and compete against the men's gymnastics team, when he could just kick them out for being mostly nonstudents using school-controlled property? Because our lovable losers are "really good at paperwork." Why does a character have to die during K-Y Jelly wrestling? So Frank can sing "Dust in the Wind" at the funeral. Maybe this is all very funny if you're wasted; without the benefit of chemical stupefication it's nonsensical and even tame. Don't expect Animal House -- it's more like a big fat Greek petting zoo.--Ryan Godfrey (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Bryn Mawr; UA 69th St.; UA Main St; UA Riverview)