Cynthia W. Gentry

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2001 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, January 2001; www.dailygossip.com.

Before I launch into my listing of the best and worst movies of 2000, I need to make a confession. I didn’t see most of the flicks released in the Christmas pre-Oscar rush. That’s a list that includes “Cast Away,” “Traffic,” and “House of Mirth.” Instead, I went to visit family in the Deep South (i.e., San Diego) over the holidays.

Yes, kids, instead of sitting in a darkened movie forming opinions for your benefit, I was writing Christmas cards, making forays into Mexico to eat lobster, ducking into Nordstrom to buy Mac lipstick and, most recently, popping Benadryl caplets like they were M&Ms thanks to a nasty little cold I seem to have developed just in time for New Year’s.

I could hang my highlighted head in shame at letting you down, or I could reserve the right to update this list at a later date. I choose the latter. Thankfully, my editor, the illustrious DavidK, has limited me for now to five Best and three Worst. So here they are, in no particular order:

Best

1. “You Can Count on Me”: This quiet story about two adult siblings, played by Laura Linney and Mark Rufalo, was the best thing to hit the screen this year. Brilliant acting, brilliant script.
2. “Croupier”: Dark, intelligent and full of surprising twists, this British noir about a writer-turned-casino-dealer should have had a much wider release than it did. Worth repeated viewings.
3. “Quills”: I’m still agog over Geoffrey Rush’s amazing performance as the Marquis de Sade. Joaquin Phoenix, whose performance was the best thing about “Gladiator,” proves again that he’s got star power.
4. “The Tao of Steve”: Donal Logue shined in this smart little indie about an overweight Casanova whose philosophy of romance falls apart in the face of true love.
5. “State and Main”: David Mamet’s new film skewers the moviemaking industry in this hilarious story of a film crew that descends upon a small New England town. With a cast that includes William H. Macy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker and David Paymer, how can you miss?

Honorable Mention

Were DavidK to allow me more than five top movies, these also would make the cut:

1. “Panic”: William H. Macy wants to get out of the family business, which just happens to be killing people for pay. Sadly, this intelligent, surprisingly moving film, which also stars Donald Sutherland, Barbara Bain, Neve Campbell and Tracy Ullman, was in the theaters for about two weeks. If you see it on video, rent it immediately.
2. “Boiler Room”: Giovanni Ribisi is drawn into a shady brokerage firm in this smart, hip film that should be required viewing for anyone thinking of investing in the stock market. I should have paid attention (ask me about my one dot-com investment).
3. “Erin Brockovich”: It’s fashionable to dis Julia Roberts, but there’s no arguing the fact that she turned in an amazing performance in Steven Soderburgh’s portrayal of a crusading legal assistant. Albert Finney almost stole the show.
4. “Best in Show”: Although Guest’s improvisational technique lags occasionally, this send-up of the dog show circuit manages to engage your sympathy for the motley assortment of dog fanciers even as it pokes gentle fun at them.
5. “Me Myself I”: In this Australian (and no doubt much better) precursor to “The Family Man,” Rachel Griffiths plays a successful-but-lonely career gal who gets a chance to see what her life would been had she married the man of her dreams. With the deft comic timing of a Lucille Ball, Griffiths shows she can carry a movie—and then some.

Worst

And now for the fun part: the turkeys of 2000. The competition for these slots was fiercer than finding a parking space at Stanford Shopping Center during the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale, but here are my top three:

1. “The Next Best Thing”: I’d excerpt from my review of this Madonna-Rupert Everett debacle, but my therapist has forbidden me to relive the two hours of my life I lost to this piece of trash. Madonna, I love you, but could you please stick to singing?
2. “Up at the Villa”: Kirsten Scott Thomas appears to know just how bad things are in this wretched adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel. Sean Penn tries valiantly to generate some chemistry with Thomas.
3. “Autumn in New York”: Although one reader soundly chastised me for my lack of romantic feeling, I stand by my original opinion about this turkey. It did for screen romance what the 2000 Presidential Election did for democracy. Winona Ryder makes you want to throw sharp objects at the screen.

So there you have it. I know it’s trendy to say that 2000 was a bad year for movies. It could be the Benadryl talking, but I found lots to be happy about.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, October 2000.

For the true movie lover, film festivals present a problem. You’re confronted with a dizzying smorgasbord of independent movies, so you’re tempted to stick with the tried and true. The reasoning goes something like this: “If it’s got Parker Posey, it must be halfway good—remember ‘House of Yes’?” I face a similar conundrum when confronted with my closet each morning, which is why I usually dress in black. Not creative or daring, but safe, always in style and most importantly, slimming.

But to make safe choices invokes a particular psychological syndrome called Film Festival Guilt. Those that suffer from it torture themselves with questions like: “Can I skip that new release filmed on Super-8 by feminist liberation theologists from Uzbekistan and not be part of the male patriarchial system?” and “If I see ‘Billy Elliott’ instead of that this obscure Greek film, will I miss this year’s ‘Il Postino’?”

Take it from me: you won’t. Because chances are, that obscure Greek film will be so bad you’ll be able to see the screen stink. This is what I discovered recently at the Austin Film Festival, where I suffered through a godawful mess called, for reasons I dare not imagine, “Black Milk.” I don’t want to start an international incident, but my guess is that the title lost something in the translation.

Stumbling out of “Black Milk,” I realized that I would never get those two hours of my life back. So I decided to abandon my usual festival-viewing strategy of giving the little guy a chance. I went to see the new David Mamet film “State and Main.” It proved to be an ever better decision than last-year’s purchase of knee-high black leather boots, especially when I discovered that the Paramount Theater in Austin serves a decent chardonnay.

“State and Main” is a joy from beginning to end, and when it opens later this year—or for the majority of us, in January 2001—you’ll be doing yourself a big disservice if you miss it. The story of a movie crew that invades a small town and gets more than they bargained for, “State and Main” has the look of a film that the cast and crew just had a hell of a good time making.

It helps to have David Mamet as your screenwriter and director. The dialogue in “State and Main” is sheer genius; I’ll have to see the film again just to catch the lines that were drowned out by laughter. Yes, we’ve all seen films before that lampoon Hollywood types, but Mamet takes those stereotypes, pushes them a degree further, adds a dark edge, and then throws them up against a slice of small-town Americana. Or at least what we think is small-town Americana. In “State and Main,” everyone has an agenda.

William H. Macy shines as Walt Price, the film-within-a-film’s director. (“Like I would ever eat carbs,” is one of the many memorable lines Macy gets to deliver with relish; I won’t tell you the situation.) Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker riff on their own celebrity personas, and the ever-omnipresent and ever-brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman gets to play a romantic lead as Joseph Turner White, the beleaguered writer who’s struggling to re-write his script. White finds himself attracted to bookstore owner and town drama coach Annie Black, played with quirky straightforwardness by Mamet’s wife Rebecca Pidgeon. Add Charles Durning as the town’s mayor and David Paymer as studio executive Marty Rossen, and you’ve got an embarrassment of riches.

Some movie critics seems to believe that reviewing a film means simply recounting the plot, like a grown-up version of a junior high book report. Not me, which is why I won’t tell you much about “State and Main.” I don’t want to take even the slightest chance or ruining the fun for you. The plot twists in this film are all foreshadowed, yet each turns out to be a surprise.

Now kids, don’t take my earlier comments to mean that you should avoid film festivals, even though they’re sprouting up faster than Britney Spears wannabes. If it weren’t for Cinequest, San Jose’s film festival, I would have never had the chance to enjoy the work of a pre-“Sopranos” Edie Falco in “Cost of Living,” nor would I have had the chance to hear Alec Baldwin talk about making “State and Main” in the oh-so-hot flesh. (I still haven’t washed the shoulder Alec touched when he leaned in discuss voter registration with me, but this is not a column about personal hygiene.)

Just give yourself enough time to enjoy the whole spectrum of festival experiences, from those little movies shot on digital video by the next Steven Soderbergh to the “big” films that festival programmers have to put on the schedule to sell tickets. There’s no better way to experience, as my fellow columnist and bon vivante ChristopherG describes it, the dream that is cinema. A dream that in “State and Main,” with all its self-referential jokes, comes true.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, February 2000.

Darlings, I’m simply exhausted. What a whirlwind weekend! I’m awfully, awfully behind, even with the help of my long-suffering assistant Troy Everhard, C.P.A., C.F.N., C.M.T., L.C.S.W., so I’ll just give you some of the highlights of the last few days. And where I have I been, you ask? The fabulous Cinequest San Jose Film Festival (www.cinequest.org), reviewing some of the latest indie flicks for your viewing benefit and hobnobbing with the stars like Peter Fonda and Alec Baldwin.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the name-dropping first, and then I’ll let you in on what new movies you should be watching out for. Friday night was impromptu drinks with Peter Fonda and Cinequest executive staff at the San Jose Fairmont Hotel’s Grill. Darlings, Peter is just a kick in the pants. It’s hard to believe he turned 61 on February 23 (yes, we had birthday cake for him, although yours truly opted out of the singing). I hope I have that much energy in 40 years when I’m that age. Peter and I had an intense discussion about stocks, sailing, and his penchant for fast cars.

But it was on Saturday that the real star watching took place, and the glare was so bright I was in my Donna Karan sunglasses all day. Headed to the airport with a group picking up Alec Baldwin and Screw magazine publisher and First Amendment rights activist Al Goldstein (who was there to appear at the Cinequest press conference with Cass Paley, director of WADD: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes). Al was resplendent in a bright blue lizard-skin blazer and a screwmag.com T-shirt.

Alec was…resplendent. Darlings, I don’t want to make my beau Tommy Texas jealous, so I won’t can’t tell you what it was like to shake his hand, look into his eyes (or at least what I assumed were his eyes behind those sunglasses) and hear him say “Hi, I’m Alec.”

My boy Alec then proceeded to wow a sold-out event at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. What can I say? He’s charming, intelligent, extremely funny and politically active. Women with much less decorum than moi squealed with delight when he entered the room. I bided my time and was rewarded. He and I had a little tete-a-tete about voter registration on the way to one of his interviews; when he took my arm to listen to what I was saying, all thoughts promptly disappeared from my head. Thank God for Troy and his triceps regimen.

Afterward, I dispensed with my usual sense of propriety and asked him for a picture. Just was we were cozying up for the camera, who should run up but Al Goldstein, who dropped to his knees, wrapped himself around me and begged me to drop Tommy and marry him. (Needless to say, Alec found this more than a little amusing; the expression some onlookers used was “peeing in his pants he was laughing so hard.”) Finally I got Al off the floor and got my picture with Al and Alec.

As for the films…
Suffice today, I’m still recovering from this weekend’s events, including last night’s Latino Celebration at the Tech Museum of Innovation, featuring the IMAX film Mexico, by Lorena Parlee. Lorena, who’s one of the only women directing in the IMAX format, is an absolutely delightful woman with whom I’d be glad to get a manicure any day. And Mexico is absolutely amazing. Its opening shot, featuring 2 million extras on Mexico’s Independence Day, gave me goosebumps. It should have: Lorena told me it took them six days just to set the shot up.

I also mentioned the documentary WADD: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes. Yes, the porn star. Go ahead and snicker, darlings, but this is a fascinating, troubling portrait of a human car wreck.

Another documentary in Cinequest that I just adored was Six Days in Roswell, which follows a nerdy guy named Richard Kronfeld as he journeys to Roswell, N.M., to witness the 50th anniversary celebration of the alleged “UFO crash.” (No comment.) It’s been a while since I laughed out loud at a documentary. Showing with it is X-Philes, another documentary that takes a look at fans of “The X-Files.” Darlings, I don’t believe in UFOs but I DO believe in the vision of male pulchritude that is David Duchovny.

Another Cinequest film that I hope makes it to the States is Janice Beard: 45 WPM, a hilarious British import featuring Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill), Patsy Kensit (Angels & Insects), and newcomer Eileen Walsh, who shines in the title role of a temp with a fanciful imagination.
Darlings, I must run to the airport to retrieve my dear Tommy, who’s returning to me (laden with gifts, one hopes) from a brief-yet-seemingly-endless sojourn in the Big Apple. But I’ll be back soon with more tidbits of gossip and film lore from Cinequest. You folks in the Bay Area, don’t miss it. And the rest of you…keep your eyes peeled. I’ll tell you want to look for. I haven’t let you down yet, have I?

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, August 2000.

As a diehard stress kitten, I’m tired of people telling me in times of overwork and/or emotional distress that I should just “relax and take a hot bubble bath.” Who has time to take a bath? I hardly have time to take a shower. Luckily, I work at home, so I can get away with hunching over my keyboard in an unwashed t-shirt and sweats until at least noon.

Chinese director Zhang Yang’s second film, “Shower,” pokes gentle fun at people like me. It opens with a young man entering what appears to be a high-tech car wash for humans. He’s in and out, cleaned from head to toe, within about five minutes. Dissolve to the same young man, explaining the virtues of this gizmo, to the bemused denizens of a public bathhouse in Northern China. The frequenters of this establishment, run by Master Liu (Zhu Xu), are mostly elderly men who spend leisurely days at the bathhouse soaking and chatting, just as they have for years.

Into this picture comes Da Ming (Pu Cun Xin), Master Liu’s estranged son. A young, wealthy businessman, Da Ming has returned to the bathhouse and his childhood home after receiving a postcard from his retarded brother Er Ming (Jiang Wu), which seemed to imply that his father has died. Da Ming arrives to find his father alive and well; nothing has changed except him. He avoids the relaxation and camaraderie of the baths for late-night showers, and makes plans to return to his fast-paced lifestyle as quickly as possible.

But fate has different plans. A series of crises force Da Ming to keep postponing his departure. And the longer he delays, the more he becomes drawn into the world of the bathhouse, his long-neglected relationships with his father and brother, and the lives of the bathhouse’s patrons, which the movie sketches with humor and affection. But this is world that is about to end. Because the bathhouse and its neighborhood are slated for demolition to make way for “modernization.” With them will go a way of life.

Apparently, the community isn’t as lucky as the one I visited in Beijing last year, called the “Hutong,” which had turned itself into a tourist attraction. (A pedicab company’s brochure trumpeted Bill Gates as a previous guest, and the irony of an icon of capitalism being a celebrity in communist China was not lost on this writer.) I saw the soulless high-rises that will replace the neighborhood portrayed in “Shower,” and it’s the last time I’ll complain about the size of my apartment. Yet I also had a glimpse of the sense of community the Chinese enjoy: wherever we went, our hosts offered us food, drink and kindness. Where I live now, I don’t even know my neighbors.

Like Da Ming, it’s a good bet that we’ll find the pacing of “Shower” as slow as life in Master Liu’s bathhouse. In fact, at the risk of overworking the water metaphor, I’d describe the pace of this movie as glacial, at least in the beginning. But like a nice warm bath, “Shower” begins to work on you. Sure, you could quibble with some clichés (the retarded, happy brother has been overworked in Western cinema), but by the time Da Ming realizes what he’s been missing in life, we’re totally hooked into these characters and this world. I’m a pretty hard cookie when it comes to film, but my eyes were leaking something fierce by the time the credits rolled.

“Shower” isn’t afraid to take its time, and we shouldn’t either. After coming home from this movie, I lit some candles and took a nice long bath. It was way overdue. “Shower” is a pleasure to be savored, and a pleasure that encourages more.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, October 2000.

Now, God knows that I’ve been known to shake a fairly well-toned leg at San Francisco dance parties into the wee hours of the morning, way past the time when I should be getting my beauty sleep. But the way I look at it, there’s nothing like being surrounded by sweaty nude male torsos to keep one young and fabulous, even those none of those torsos are interested in moi, if you get my drift.

So I’d love to go to a rave, but I’m afraid that I’d be mistaken as a chaperone. And after seeing writer-director Ron Krauss’ new film, “Rave,” I’m convinced that one of these events would simply cross CynthiaG’s Level of Inconvenience, which drops in exact proportion to my chronological age.

But that’s not to say you shouldn’t see this film, should it gets the distribution it deserves. Kids, remember when I predicted in this very column that Hilary Swank would win the Best Actress Oscar for “Boys Don’t Cry”? Well, I’ve got another prediction for you: Aimee Graham. If she can pick the right projects and stay off the ingénue path, the sister of It-girl Heather Graham won’t have to worry about being eclipsed by Big Sister’s shadow. This gal can act. Mark my words.

Aimee isn’t the only one who shows promise. Writer-director Ron Krauss has put a high-energy, appealing young ensemble cast for “Rave,” which I saw recently at the Austin Film Festival. Intercutting mock-interviews with action, “Rave” traces the stories of several L.A. kids (oh, how it hurts to call them “kids”) over the course of a day and a night that culminate in what must be the world’s most disastrous rave.

“Rave” crackles with energy and a truly fabulous soundtrack. (The opening credits were the most inventive I’ve seen in a while.) Other standouts in the cast include Nicholle Tom (who’s had parts in “The Nanny” and “Beverly Hills, 90210”) as my favorite character, Sadie. Douglas Spain from “Star Maps” does a charismatic turn as Daffy, a young Latino torn between his family, his girlfriend and his desire to experience life. Scott Torrence—whose sole screen credit was on an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”—is amazing as Amanda, a flamboyantly gay teenager.

“Rave” is probably as good as a low-budget film could be. Ironically, the scenes with the older adult actors are the most stilted in pacing and acting; when the younger actors are with each other, they light up the screen. The rave scenes capture the excitement of these events, and, later on a less-positive note, the panic of a riot. (Riots hit my Level of Inconvience rather quickly, which is why I no longer attend Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sales.)

Ravers might have some problems with this film. In fact, at the screening I attended, one young man expressed his distress during the Q&A with Krauss that raves were depicted in such a negative light. I haven’t seen “Groove,” which I understand was a generally positive view of the San Francisco rave seen, but “Rave,” must be its exact opposite, tackling issues of racial tension, dysfunctional families, drug use, and unwanted pregnancy, lending the film at times a “Movie of the Week” quality.

I would have preferred fewer story lines, perhaps, and certainly less predictable ones. When a favorite character expresses early a fear of getting shot, you know that’s exactly what’s going to happen. (This must be a corollary to the Hollywood law that any movie cop who’s two weeks away from retirement is going to be the bad guy’s next victim.) And although the depiction of drug use was certainly harrowing, does every character who takes drugs have to end up either beat up or in the ER? At least smoking was kept to a minimum. In another film I saw at the festival, characters smoked so many cigarettes that I thought the filmmakers had received funding from Philip Morris. (I’ll save my anti-smoking-in-the-movies-anywhere-else-on-earth diatribe for a “You Bitch” column.)

I quibble somewhat. Krauss interviewed numerous teenagers and ravers for this movie, and their concerns, fears and hopes ring through the actors’ performances. What Krauss and his co-writers Kristine A. Tata and Mario Savala capture so movingly is the love that these kids have for each other and the families they create when their own families let them down. In the end, that’s what moved me about “Rave”—even more than the music.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, December 2000.

There is only one word to describe the state of mind in which I and my dear friend, the ever-winsome-and-artistic DawnI, found ourselves after seeing “Quills,” Philip Kaufman’s portrayal of the notorious Marquis de Sade. That word is “agog.” My Webster’s defines the term as “full of intense interest or excitement,” and I don’t think there’s any better adjective for this movie. It’s a brilliant tour de force from beginning to end.

Yes, I know “Quills,” has received mixed reviews from many critics. Heaven forbid I come across as opinionated, but well, they’re just plain wrong. For example, many reviewers, including my beloved Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, fault “Quills” for its historical inaccuracy. And? Did I miss the word “documentary” over the opening credits? Excuse me. I must have been trying to restart my heartbeat after the audacious scene that begins the movie and makes the connection between lust and terror, in more ways the one.

“Quills” is also more than simply the ode to freedom of speech that some critics have described it, comparing it to films such as “The People Vs. Larry Flynt.”  It’s also about more than sex, despite what the trailers would have you believe. Based on the play by Doug Wright (who also wrote the screenplay), “Quills” takes on issues of hypocrisy, repression and freedom of artistic expression, themes Kaufman also explored in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”

The Marquis de Sade advocated a kind of sexual anarchy—“True happiness lies in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them,” he once said—and that was, and is, as threatening as political anarchy to the powers that be. (His writings were banned in France until very recently.) Exposed from an early age to depravity, the Marquis was no Boy Scout: he practiced what he preached, and was thrown in jail several time for sexually abusing both women and children. Not a swell guy, the Marquis. “Quills” confines itself to the end of the Marquis’ life, when he was imprisoned in the insane asylum in Charenton for his refusal to stop writing novels like Justine and Juliette.

As portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, who’s my pick for the Best-Actor Oscar, the Marquis is brilliant, charming, profane and scandalous—just the type of guy you’d like to have at a dinner party, particularly one attended by members of the so-called Christian Right. Some have called Rush’s performance “over the top.” Well, yes. What of it? If ever a part cried for an actor to push his limits, this is it. And Rush, literally, bares it all.

Despite his imprisonment, the Marquis continues to write under the supposed guidance of the compassionate Abbé Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix, in yet another stunning performance), who believes that writing about vice will decrease the Marquis’ need to act on it. What the Abbé doesn’t know is that the Marquis is smuggling his novels—which appear to be as widely awaited as the next Harry Potter tome and much more interesting, in my rather salacious opinion—out of prison with the help of the literature-loving chambermaid Madeline (the bodacious Kate Winslet, who looks as if she had just sprung from an X-rated Fragonard).

Since sex is always much more threatening than violence, the Marquis’ writings are blamed for inspiring a variety of crimes. This comes to the attention of Napoleon, who sends Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) to “cure” the Marquis. Slowly but surely, de Sade is deprived of his means of artistic expression, a punishment that is for him worse than death.

I’m sure that Kaufman meant us to draw a parallel with our own society. Today, of course, we have the MPAA rating system to institute hypocrisy into American cinema. Kaufman’s literary lovefest “Henry & June” thus gets a kiss-of-death NC-17 and Stanley Kubrick has to digitally alter his orgies, while the bloodbaths of Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” garner an R.

As we all know by now, the term “sadism” has come to mean “one who receives sexual satisfaction from the infliction of pain on others.” Ironically, it is not the Marquis who is the sadist in “Quills,” but the amoral and hypocritical Dr. Royer-Collard, whose psychological “cures” most closely resemble the tortures of the Inquisition and whose sexual interests run to young girls.

Though he’ll no doubt receive an Oscar nomination, I found Caine’s performance rather one-note, with none of the nuance an Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons might have brought to the role. (To me, Joaquin Phoenix’s tormented emperor in “Gladiator” was the most interesting part of the movie.) Caine’s Royer-Collard is simply a monster rather than a three-dimensional human being. However, both Winslet and Phoenix rise to the occasion. In particular, I continue to be amazed by Phoenix. His Abbé does do some terrible things, but without losing our sympathy.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any missteps in “Quills.” Madeline, who longs after the Abbé in mutual chaste adoration, also engages in some flirtation with the courier who picks up the Marquis’ latest chapters; this courier, with his black clothes and horse, appears to have sprung directly from the pages of the latest bodice-ripper. It’s also sometimes hard to forget that “Quills” was once a play: the dialogue, though superb, gets a little talky at points, especially in the scenes between Rush and Phoenix. But otherwise, Kaufman does a superb job in extending the action beyond the claustrophobic prison cell where the Marquis rages.

“Quills” does encourage often-blocked writers like myself to participate in a sort of literary masochism. As I watched the Marquis do anything he could to express himself—even use various bodily fluids as ink—I kicked myself internally over and over. That man is in a prison cell writing in his own blood, I thought, while I can’t even get myself to sit down at my expensive little laptop in my Pottery Barn apartment. But there are times, too, when I have felt compelled to write. If “Quills” is an ode to anything, it’s an ode to the artistic urge, an urge that like sexuality, isn’t always pretty, and isn’t always safe.

I can’t write about “Quills” without writing about the strain of political commentary that runs through it. The French Revolution may have been a reaction against the excesses of the nobility, but by the time Napoleon crowns himself emperor, the revolutionaries are committing the same excesses. Royer-Collard buys a villa in which the bloodstains of the previous owner’s wife, who was killed by the Jacobins, paint the staircase. Yet he lets his young wife spare no expense in renovating it.

Are all revolutions fueled by nothing but envy? It’s a weak comparison, but I can’t help thinking about our own times, in which dot-com millionaires pat themselves on the back for creating a “New Economy” while they fall over themselves to buy themselves the accoutrements of the old one: gas-guzzling, smog-creating SUVs and monster mansions that would put Louis XIV to shame. Meanwhile rents force lower- and middle-income people—you know, those folks who make the lattes and clean our offices—out of their homes.

With the recent debacle of an election, many pundits have applauded the fact that despite the zaniness, there were no armies in the streets, no riots. I think it’s great, too, but I think we should thank our own apathy, not our system of law, because if people really understood what had happened, I’d doubt we’d be so sanguine. A second round of Republican “trickle-down theory” may take care of everything, or the natural permutations of the stock market might even restore balance. But sometimes I wonder whether people will know there’s a revolution until it comes into their own gated communities. As “Quills” shows in such graphic detail, eventually all excesses get checked, but often in direct proportion to their extremes.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2001 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, January 2001.

First off, let me just say that I may not be the best person to review a George Clooney movie. The man could read the phone book onscreen for two hours, and I’d still leave the theater grinning like a simpleton. (It occurs to me that I may have made the same claim about Ralph Fiennes or Liam Neeson, but this is my review, so we’ll just need to process our issues, won’t we.)

However, I believe I offset my impartiality regarding all things Clooney with my loathing of all things Coen. I don’t have a problem with Joel and Ethan personally, mind you. I’m sure they’re very nice young men, but I’m not a fan of their movies. People assure me that “Raising Arizona” was the funniest movie ever made; my funny bone remained resolutely untickled. I detested “Barton Fink” with every fiber of my being, and while I appreciated “Fargo,” watching it was not an experience I want to repeat. I’d seen mixed reviews of “O Brother,” and even heard that some friends left the theater after 20 minutes.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself guffawing with laughter throughout “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Now, it could have been that there were mitigating circumstances. Despite the ministrations of my wonderful beau, the dynamic and doting DaveH, my New Year hadn’t gotten off to a great start. Not only did I usher it in with the Bay Area’s omnipresent cold, but I received proof positive that the phrase “What goes around, comes around” is full of you-know-what. (A week later, the universe made it up to me, sort of: I exchanged a fetching velvet tank to Nordstrom.com for a different size, and the retailer sent me not only a new top but a free silk skirt. Things are looking up, and yes, I do plan to alert them to their error, because I’m hanging onto my belief in karma tighter than NBC’s conviction that “Survivor II” will be a hit.)

I was ready for a laugh, in other words, and after splitting an ever-so-tasty bottle of Varner Chardonnay with the winsome and effervescent DawnI, I was primed for some fun. And fun is what “O Brother” delivers. As most of you know by now, “O Brother” purports to be based Homer’s The Odyssey, a book the Coens recently admitted they’d never read. No matter. The Coens’ give us a vain Ulysses, a bible-selling Cyclops (Coen stalwart John Goodman), some sirens and an impatient Penelope (Holly Hunter). They also give us a joyride through the iconography of the Depression-era South, complete with semi-corrupt politicians (such as the talented Charles Durning playing Pappy O’Daniel, who was actually governor of Texas, not Mississippi, from 1938-42) who can also dance a fine jig, and scruffy urchins who drive getaway cars.

Our Ulysses in this story is Clooney’s Ulysses Everett McGill, the pomade-addicted, hairnet-wearing leader of the sorriest band of escaped convicts you ever saw–Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson)—who’ve busted off a chain gang in search of a treasure hidden in Ulysses’ family homestead. The fast-talking Ulysses, who seems to have spent his time in prison (where he was sent for, not surprisingly, practicing law without a license) reading Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, imagines himself as the brains of this outfit, but that’s not saying much.

Clooney may not be Lawrence Olivier, but I don’t think he much cares. While marketed for his matinee-idol good looks, in this movie Clooney shows himself to be one of our best comedic actors. The secret of being a great comedian is being able and willing to make a fool out of yourself, which seems far beyond the reach and vanity of most of today’s pretty-boy actors. Clooney not only has incredible good looks but an incredible sense of fun. This, no doubt, is probably what makes him so sexy. (Guys, take note.) And he seems to having a blast here. After the heroics of “Three Kings” and the waterlogged misery of “The Perfect Storm,” no wonder Clooney accepted this part without reading the script. Thank God he took the risk.

Mixing the grotesque with the gorgeous, “O Brother” cast a wide net over American culture, referencing everything from gangster legends to prison movies to the legend of blues legend Robert Johnson’s death. Imagine a 1940s screwball comedy transplanted to our times and leavened with a dose of millennial cynicism, and you’ll get the idea. The Coens’ play fast and loose with the truth (George “Babyface” Nelson, who makes a memorable appearance as a manic-depressive, was killed in Illinois, not Mississippi, in 1934, three years before the movie is set), but it’s all in the name of fun. Oliver Stone this ain’t, heavens be praised.

Even the movie’s title reveals layers of meaning: in Preston Sturges’ 1942 film “Sullivan’s Travels,” a pampered Hollywood director (Joel McCrea) who is tired of making fluff sets out to make a “serious” film called “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and decides to research it by experiencing “the real world” as a hobo. Just as Sturges’ plays with his characters preconceived notions about reality, so do the Coen brothers riff on our stereotypes of the South—so much so that at times, you might actually wish for subtitles.

“O Brother” is surprisingly good-spirited for a Coen movie, poking fun at its characters with gentle good humor as well as biting satire where it’s deserved. Some viewers might have a knee-jerk reaction to a scene that portrays a Klu Klux Klan movie as a demented Busby Berkeley musical, but why not expose these racists as the silly idiots they are? Besides, unlike real life, the bad guys do get their due. You can’t help but like a movie where a hypocritical scoundrel actually does get run out of town on a rail. (Oh, a girl can dream.)

Filmed in sepia tones by the Coen’s frequent collaborator, Roger Deakins, who was also responsible for “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Dead Man Walking” and “The Hurricane,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is a strangely beautiful movie. Deakins evokes the South so effectively that you can actually feel the heat coming off the screen in some scenes (and I don’t just mean the one that featured Mr. Clooney in a pristine white shirt, during which DawnI forced me to take deep breath from an empty popcorn tub). The soundtrack, featuring the work of T. Bone Burnett and many others, almost acts as a character in its own right.

Yes, I know this film might not be to everyone’s tastes. Who knows, maybe I’ll hate it on a second viewing and be forced to run a retraction. But every once in a while, the stars align, and you see a particular film when you most need to. I’ll always be grateful to the Coen brothers (not to mention DawnI, Varner Vineyards and George Clooney’s bone structure) for salvaging my spirit on a night when I was beginning to lose my faith in humanity. Granted, the Ashcroft confirmation hearings aren’t over, but I feel a heck of a lot more hopeful.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, March 2000.

Darlings, let me start off by saying that I love Madonna. Frankly, the woman rocks. I’ve listened to “Ray of Light” oh, about a trillion times over the last few years. Madonna has gotten me through a divorce, a couple of breakups, long commutes and more than a few workouts. So Madonna, I think I can say this to you:

Please, please don’t try to act.

If you do, it should be in something where you can be the leading lady you are—like in “Evita,” where you get to run a country. But “The Next Best Thing” does not display your copious talents to good effect, to make a colossal understatement. Darlings, if I hadn’t been reviewing this movie for my loyal readers, I would have walked out, if only to stop causing pain to my dear friend Kyle Irish, who still hasn’t forgiven me for dragging him to this mess on his recent visit from Hollywood.

By now, everyone knows the plot of “The Next Best Thing.” Madonna plays Abbie Reynolds and Rupert Everett is her best friend, Robert Whittaker, the world’s most gorgeous landscape architect. Abbie is a yoga instructor who, despite what’s probably a $10-an-hour salary, lives in a beautiful multimillion-dollar-home in the Hollywood Hills. In the first of many times we’re asked to suspend our disbelief, the movie opens with Abbie getting dumped by her live-in boyfriend Kevin (hunky Michael Vartan from “Never Been Kissed”). Kevin is such a slimeball – he even refers to Robert as a “faggot” – that it’s hard not to cheer when he drives away, and we think less of Abbie for begging him to stay. The real Madonna, of course, would have kicked this guy in the nuts.

Abbie runs to Robert for solace. Staring at Rupert Everett’s bare chest would have been plenty of solace for moi, but Abbie whines on and on about her biological time clock and advancing age. And believe you me, the cinematography by Eliott Davis does not encourage one to disagree with her.

After the funeral of a friend who’s died from AIDS, Abbie and Robert get drunk and do the nasty (without protection, I might add), although all we get to see is a kiss. The morning-after scene is so badly written that we’re not even sure that they have done it (apparently Robert wasn’t so drunk not to put his underwear on afterwards). Abbie incomprehensibly moons around like a lovestruck teen (what, she thinks now he’s straight?) and Robert rushes around vacuuming broken pottery. They have a lover’s quarrel (huh?), but everything’s fine once Abbie glides into Robert’s greenhouse and announces that she’s pregnant. Without pause, Robert agrees to join Abbie in raising the child.

So far, we’ve got the makings of a nice romantic comedy, but “The Next Best Thing” is neither romantic nor comic. It even misses the chance to be a hip sex romp. Everett struggles against the script to enliven each scene with his trademark sly wit, but he’s up against an insurmountable obstacle: Madonna’s acting. The woman who is so charismatic in front of a microphone manages to drain the life from every scene she’s in, reducing whatever on-screen chemistry there could have been between her and Everett to zero. The preachy, on-the-nose script by Thomas Ropelewski doesn’t help much. Characters don’t talk; they lecture and pontificate.

The scene where Abbie has the baby – we only see Madonna screaming “Give me all the drugs you’ve got” – is another missed opportunity. How powerful it would have been to show Robert witnessing the birth, and the two friends struggling through sleep deprivation, dirty diapers and the terrible twos. Instead, we fast-forward five years. Their son Sam (Malcolm Stumpf) is a happy, well-adjusted kid who teaches yoga to his friends at his birthday party. Uh huh. The only note of discord is that Abbie hasn’t had a date since Sam’s birth, and there’s a hint of jealousy as Robert gets ready for to visit Eric, a hunky cardiologist, while Abbie stays home and feels sorry for herself. (Kyle later told me that he wasn’t sure whether he was squirming more at the sight of Eric’s incredible pecs or the horrid dialogue. He was only able to resolve the cognitive dissonance by getting loaded on multiple Cutty-and-sodas in First Class on the way back to L.A.)

But the movie can’t even let Robert enjoy himself (and it certainly can’t show a kiss between two men). The sleepless Robert pushes Eric away by telling him that he can’t stop worrying over Sam’s first day of school. This only made me lose sympathy for Robert: the movie seems to be saying that even gay men can use their children as an excuse for not being present in an adult relationship, a tactic perfected by my ex-b.f. Beelzebub, who perhaps served as script adviser.

When Abbie finally does begin dating the oh-so-perfect Ben (Benjamin Bratt), the movie takes a surreal turn, asking us to believe Abbie and Robert, two supposedly caring, sensitive people, would suddenly begin behaving like complete jerks. Abbie then does something so unbelievable for her character that it caused Kyle to call me in hysterics from the airphone in First Class, screaming that he’d seen Bunuel films with a stronger grip on reality. As “The Next Best Thing” devolves into bad Movie-of-the-Week territory, Everett alternates between hanging his head, curling his lip and engaging in progressively wilder histrionics (perhaps as a reaction to the script), and Madonna mopes around with fake tears.

Perhaps relieved that the movie is about to end, both principals manage to finally convey a tiny bit of connection in the final scene. By then, we feel like cheering, too. Darlings, I had a headache after this movie that took my personal assistant Troy three hours to massage out of my temples. It’s hard to believe that the brilliant and versatile John Schlesinger, who gave us the searing drama of “Midnight Cowboy” and “Marathon Man” and the witty “Cold Comfort Farm,” directed this ill-fated jumble. Kyle and I have been calling each other each night to pray that Madonna and Rupert both find roles worthy of their talents and that maybe we’ll one day get a movie that shows that gay people can be good parents and sexual beings. Until then, let’s hope all of us are able to put this little incident behind us. For now, I’ll have to give “The Next Best Thing” a big “CREDIT CARD DENIED” rating. Madonna, girlfriend, I’m sorry.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, February 2000.

Darlings, here’s a bit of advice, freely given from moi to toi. Never, never let anyone talk you into renting Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers,” even if you are, as I was, snowbound in the mountains with no means of escape. But if you are subjected to this vile use of celluloid, I have the perfect antidote for you: “Galaxy Quest.” A delightful spoof of sci fi conventions (both literally and figuratively), this film so entertained me that it put thoughts of my date’s magnificent biceps right out of my mind. And that, darlings, is an accomplishment.

To be perfectly honest with you (and when am I not?), the previews for “Galaxy Quest” left me distinctly underwhelmed. But then I succumbed to the rave reviews of my dear friend and style maven Dawn, whose taste I trust even more than my own. So on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I dragged Mr. Biceps to the movies.

Tim Allen (looking very biceps-laden himself, I must say) plays the egotistical Jason Nesmith, the aging former star of a “Star Trek”-like show called “Galaxy Quest.” Nesmith and his bickering colleagues – Gwen DeMarco (a very blonde and very funny Sigourney Weaver), Alexander Dane (the always-brilliant Alan Rickman), Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) and Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) – have been reduced to making appearances at Galaxy Quest conventions and cutting ribbons at electronics store openings.

It’s at one of these conventions that Nesmith encounters what he thinks are four of his more socially impaired fans. But it seems that the “fans” are in fact aliens from the planet Thermia, who believe 1) that the episodes of the show are “historical documents”; 2) that Jason Nesmith really is his “Galaxy Quest” character Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart; and 3) that he and his “crew” are the only ones who can save their race from extinction.

Nesmith signs up for the job faster than I signed up for a Victoria’s Secret credit card at Christmas, and soon he’s enlisted his crew to come along for what Nesmith tells Dane is the “role of a lifetime.” In one of the funniest ongoing bits, they’re joined by Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell), who has been capitalizing on his brief appearance in Episode 81. Unfortunately, acting like space heroes on TV has left them hilariously unprepared for actually facing the dangers of deep space – dangers that include the evil Sarris (Robin Sachs).

As directed by Dean Parisot from an clever, literate script by David Howard and Robert Gordon, “Galaxy Quest” skewers every cliché of the science fiction genre and the mini-culture it creates: the cheesy dialogue, the obsessed fans, the perils of outer space as interpreted by screenwriters. Much humor is milked from the fact that Thermians have created the spaceship to be an exact replica of the one on the TV show, and in one of the film’s most hilarious sequences, Nesmith (Allen) and DeMarco (Weaver) dodge a gauntlet of “big clangy things that smash together” yet serve no apparent purpose. “Whoever wrote this episode should die!” screams DeMarco as they dodge the deadly pistons.

“Galaxy Quest” has a few gentle messages about friendship, courage and role-playing, but like any good spoof, the film doesn’t hit you over the head with them. The excellent cast appears to be having a grand old time, and it rubs off on the audience. I can’t imagine what convinced Allen, Weaver et. al. to do this movie, but I’m glad they did. At the child-filled matinee I saw, the adults were the ones laughing the hardest: we remember (or some of us remember, anyway) the early episodes of  “Star Trek” and the first “Star Wars” movie). What a delight.

Oh yes, I mentioned “Starship Troopers.” Darlings, all I can say is, this is the director that brought us “Showgirls,” and I’m seriously concerned. The people with whom I saw this awful thing tried to convince me that “Troopers” is a satire on the violence- and war-obsessed American culture, and I love to satirize America as much as the next person, but this one is grisly, badly acted, and despite having had what was probably the GNP of a small nation spent on it, boring.

It’s a sad day when the character I like the best (the tasty Patrick Muldoon from “Will & Grace”) is the one who gets his brains sucked out. Watching “Starship Troopers,” perhaps I empathized with him. When your lead actor has the expressiveness of a Ken doll and your lead actress is Denise Richards, well, need I say more? One has to depend on a sick mind and special effects to keep your audience from bolting. I, however, was stranded between Reno and Donner Pass, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

So save the money you’d spend on DVD rentals and spend it on popcorn at “Galaxy Quest.” You may not be as lucky as I was to have Mr. Biceps sitting next to you, but you’ll get lots of eye candy anyway, including Sigourney Weaver earning a most saucy burgundy Wonderbra its name. And to some of us gals with more space-efficient cleavage, that in itself is a reason for hope. I give “Galaxy Quest” a rousing Chanel Vamp-polished thumbs-up.

By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, May 2000.

Darlings, it’s been a long day, and I’d like nothing better than to curl up in bed with a cup of chamomile tea and the latest issue of The New Yorker, because I live to see which movie my man Anthony Lane has dissected now. But then I think of Erin Brockovich, who instigated a class-action suit against PG&E while raising three kids single-handedly, and I get off my duff.

Like you, I’d heard good things about “Erin Brockovich,” but I hadn’t rushed out to see it. That was a mistake. Because it’s one of the first movies in a long time to send me out of the theater smiling.  And it’s director Steven Soderbergh’s best work to date, in no small part due to a fine script by Susannah Grant. What Grant did for Drew Barrymore in “Ever After,” which she also scripted, she now does for Julia Roberts.

“Erin Brockovich” is the true story of a single mother of three who won’t take “No” for an answer. And Julia Roberts, decked out in miniskirts, cleavage-enhancing tops and high heels, plays Erin to the hilt. She bullies her way into the law firm of Ed Masry (played in a scene-stealing performance by Albert Finney) and once there, takes on a utility (my own PG&E) that’s polluting a small desert town, winning the residents one of the biggest class action suits in U.S. history.

She also finds romance in the person of George (Aaron Eckhart), a gentle biker who takes care of her kids in a nice example of role reversal. Erin agonizes about neglecting her kids as she pursues the case, but she never wavers in her dedication to it, nor is she “punished” like so many other cinematic moms who choose career over kids, even if that choice is only temporary—and in this case, for a much greater good than stock options. (Momentary soapbox digression: Have we ever seen a man cry in the movies over missing his child’s first words because of work? I don’t think so, and I think it’s about time we did. Lecture over.)

For the scenes outside the law office, Soderbergh makes effective use of handheld cameras that capture the chaotic nature of Erin’s life. Although “Erin Brockovich” is a “studio” movie (produced by Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films) and distributed by Columbia and Universal, it retains a gritty, independent feel that perfectly reflects the spirit of its heroine.  Sure, its pace is occasionally languid, but this is a movie that makes you care personally about the dangers of chromium, wonder what your own drinking water contains and hope that you have an Erin Brockovich in your own neighborhood.