Small Time Crooks
(Escrocs mais pas trop)
Woody Allen has hit upon another terrific premise in “Small Time Crooks.” Crime non-mastermind Ray Winkler (Allen) and his wife Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) rent a storefront in which she runs a cookie store as legit cover for the fact that he and his numbskull buddies are tunneling into the vault of a nearby bank via the cellar. But the cookies turn out to be the real gold mine — New Yorkers can’t get enough of them and the couple’s source of dough turns out to be just that. The slapstick yucks give way to social satire as abruptly rich Ray yearns to continue enjoying the same simple pleasures while his wife embraces social climbing the way kudzu embraces the average trellis.
In case you hadn’t noticed, a lot of Americans have struck it rich of late through stock picks and dumb luck. As F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, “The rich are different,” and while “Small Time Crooks” is no “Gatsby,” it fires plenty of barbs at what can happen when have-nots are promoted to haves and ordinary folks try to breathe rarefied air without pausing to get acclimated. The entire cast is very funny, with special praise for Ullman, Hugh Grant and Elaine May. (Dec 6)
Chicken Run
Henri IV promised “a chicken in every pot,” but the feature-length animated gem “Chicken Run” (from Aardman Studios, of “Wallace and Gromit” fame) could leave one with the impression there’s some pot in every chicken — the kind you smoke, that is. A trippy tribute to the stiff upper beaks, er, lips of countless Englishmen and token Yanks determined to escape from POW camps, “Chicken Run” salutes the glory of “The Great Escape” and “Stalag 17” with the thrilling and funny tale of a group of hens determined to eggs-it from the farm where they’re cooped up. I can’t overemphasize how much fun this movie is. It works on every level and will delight viewers of all ages. (Dec 13)
“Chicken Run: Hatching the Movie,” by Brian Sibly (£20/$35, published by Boxtree in the UK and Harry N. Abrams in the US) is an absolutely magnificent account of how the film was created. Far more than most movie tie-in books, this hefty tome is a painlessly educational introduction to telling a story on celluloid. The illustrations are wonderful and the entire volume illuminates the painstaking work that goes into making movies in general and stop-action animation in particular. “We don’t make ‘animated films,’” emphasizes Peter Lord, who co-created “Chicken Run” with Nick Park. “We make FILMS — and, by the way, they happen to be animated.” As one of the animated critters in the film says, it all makes for “poultry in motion.”
Dr. T and the Women
In “Dr. T and the Women” (Docteur T & Les Femmes, Jan 3), Richard Gere stars as a prominent Dallas gynecologist whose currently unfair life revolves around the fair sex. “He loves women but he doesn't understand them,” Altman says, “because he’s looking at them from the wrong angle.” As it were. The film’s heavily populated opening scene — which introduces the wealthy gloss of Dallas and the barely controlled mayhem of the good doctor’s medical offices — is as over the top as a freshly drilled oil well gushing black gold. And the final shot — which Altman wishes to remain a surprise, for good reason — is a luminous moment of which the director says, “I’m prouder of that shot than of anything I’ve ever done before.”
In between, the movie itself is a free-wheeling chronicle of the countdown to a wedding in a moneyed community where the men hunt and the women shop. Dr. T’s wife has reverted to a childlike state, a victim of the “Hestia Complex,” a condition allegedly brought on by feeling so protected and well provided for that there’s no reason to remain adult in one’s responses to the world. Farrah Fawcett, Helen Hunt, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Liv Tyler and Kate Hudson flit, gesticulate and stride their ways through this agreeable mess of a distaff tone poem that some observers have decided is misogynistic. In Gallic food crisis terms, these observers are full of outlawed animal meal.
When Altman spoke with me in Deauville in September, he was anything but shy about sharing his political views. “George W. Bush is a stupid man,” says the robust director, who tackled politics in “Nashville” and “Tanner 88.” “You can see those Republicans a mile away because none of them can smile. I think what might sink Bush is that smirk of his. Gore is a great guy. In his eight years as vice-president he’s done an enormous amount to secure the conservation of American land, to protect huge chunks of the beautiful country. He’s a good man but he’s not a glib politician. I’m just hoping voters will come to their senses, because Bush would be a disaster not only for America but for the world.
“I was in Austin, Texas, not long ago to show ‘Nashville’ for its 25th anniversary, and I addressed a crowd of 1,500 people in the capitol building, where the auditorium was. I told them how proud I was ‘to be in the great state of Texas and in this building that houses your great governor George W. Bush. And I’m here to say that I hope he remains your governor for the next 12 years.’”
Altman claims he doesn’t direct actors — “I cast. When I cast the film or the play or whatever I’m doing, 85% of my creative work is finished. The cast does all the work. What I want to see is something I’ve never seen before, so how can I tell someone what that is?”
He attributes his present career to the acclaim he got for M.A.S.H. at Cannes in 1970, without which, he firmly believes, he’d be directing sitcoms somewhere. You may have read that Altman announced he’d move abroad if a certain Republican ended up in the White House. As you read this, the director is in London preparing his next feature, which will have an all-British cast.
