Song and dance, war and strife, art and life

Interview, Dec, 2002

PREVIEW: GANGS OF NEW YORK (Miramax)

Directed by Martin Scorsese

In this long-awaited epic about immigrant strife in Civil War-era Gotham, Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) is out to get Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) for killing his father; Cameron Diaz plays a thief caught in the middle. Gangs is said to be Scorsese's most gripping film yet, and that says everything.

Diane Baroni

PREVIEW: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (Dream Works)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Spielberg's Christmas gift to moviegoers is based on the true story of a gregarious and gallant con man named Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose captor, FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), so admired him that he arranged for Abagnale to consult for the bureau.

Nicole Vecchiarelli

PREVIEW: CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (Miramax)

Directed by George Clooney

Chuck Barns, game show impresario: He assassinated brain cells, but was he a CIA killer? Clooney takes on Barris' memoir, where he makes just that claim, for his directing debut. With a great cast (Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, Rutger Hauer, and Sam Rockwell), and a script by Charlie Kaufman (see Adaptation review), it has to be interesting.

Vince Passaro

PREVIEW: 25TH HOUR (Touchstone)

Directed by Spike Lee

Monty (Edward Norton) is having a last-night fling before he goes to prison. His best buds, Barry Pepper and Philip Seymour Hoffman, are there to see him off, as is his father, Brian Cox, and his girlfriend, Rosario Dawson. Lee's drama, which literally and figuratively overlooks the aftermath of 9/11, has hit--and Oscar aspirations--written all over it.

Henry Cabot Beck

PREVIEW: CHICAGO (Miramax)

Directed by Rob Marshall

A trio of stars burn down Chicago, the hottest (OK, only) musical of 2002, based on Bob Fosse's 1975 Broadway song-and-dance about two murderous chorines (played here by Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones) and the lawyer they share (Richard Gere).

REVIEW: ADAPTATION (Columbia)

Thelma Adams

Directed by Spike Jonze

Jonze's wonderfully ambitious new film, based on Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's nightmare adapting it, addresses the sometimes wrenching process of creation from the inside out. Nicolas Cage, playing Kaufman and his twin brother Donald, leads a terrific ensemble that includes Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, and Tilda Swinton. The cult film of the season.

Sara Switzer

REVIEW: THE HOURS (Paramount)

Directed by Stephen Daldry

Based on Michael Cunningham's novel, this artful if schematic meditation on mortality (and sapphic repression) links the lives of Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), an unhappy '50s L.A. housewife (Julianne Moore) reading Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and a strung-out modern-day Manhattan publisher (Meryl Streep) whose soul mate (Ed Harris) is dying of AIDS. Watching Kidman's miraculous performance, one regrets there's not two more hours of her and Stephen Dillane as the long-suffering Leonard Woolf.

Graham Fuller

REVIEW: ABOUT SCHMIDT (New Line)

Directed by Alexander Payne

Thirty-three years after Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson's on the road again, his Warren Schmidt--widower, retiree, father, and sponsor to an impoverished African boy--cruising middle America in a Winnebago, searching for the self he's never known. An epic journey, with Jack as good as he gets.

Scott Lyle Cohen

REVIEW: THE PIANIST (Focus Features)

Directed by Roman Polanski

As the invading Nazis harass, quarantine, imprison, and finally march Warsaw's Jews off to death camps, a gifted pianist (Adrien Brody) struggles to stay alive and to stay to true to his art--his lone reason for living. A virtuoso work as moving as any concerto.

SLC

REVIEW: TALK TO HER (Sony Classics)

Directed by Pedro Almodovar

A male nurse lovingly tends, then impregnates, the beautiful dancer he once stalked; in the same hospital a journalist shrinks from the wrecked body of his bullfighter inamorata. Both women are comatose; both men are emotionally blind. But Almodovar, delivering a sublime metaphorical melodrama about love built on quicksand and the lies we tell our selves, sees all.

GF

Hot times in the Windy City. Above: Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart and Richard Gereas Billy Flynn in Rob Marshall's Chicago.

Photo: David James/Miramax.