Big waves, big guns, big stars and big issues

Interview, August, 2003

PREVIEW: SEABISCUIT (Universal) Directed by Gary Ross

A stumpy-legged horse with heart, a half-blind ex-prizefighting jockey (Tobey Maguire), a sage trainer (Chris Cooper), and a marketing genius (Jeff Bridges) are the principal figures in this Depression-era saga. Ross (Pleasantville, 1998) seems capable of walking the thin line between sentiment and slop, and word has it that this horse crosses the finish line in front of the pack.

Henry Cabot Beck

PREVIEW: LARA CROFT TOMB

RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE (Paramount)

Directed by Jan De Bont

Back as ass-kicking archaeologist Lara Croft, Angelina Jolie races against the head of an evil Chinese crime syndicate to find Pandora's box. This time around, lovely Lara's got a partner, an old beau played by the sexy Gerard Butler. Finally, a Tomb Raider the girls can love too!

Susan Johnston

PREVIEW: GIGLI (Columbia/Revolution)

Directed by Martin Brest

Ben Affleck plays a bungling gangster who kidnaps the brother of a prosecutor out to take down his boss. Hired gun J. Lo is sent in ... Look: The real story here is the back story--it was on this film that the stars first worked together. Ben and J. Lo, this is them... then.

Jarret McNeill

PREVIEW: BAD BOYS II (Columbia)

Directed by Michael Bay

Reprising their roles from the 1995 original, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back on the beat. So, too, are Bay, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and their same ol' formula: monster explosions, crazy car chases, nasty drug lords, and skin. What took them eight years?

Mark Simon Burk

REVIEW: THE MAGDALENE SISTERS (Miramax)

Directed by Peter Mullan

In mid-'60s Ireland, young women sent by their families to a convent-cum-asylum for supposed moral transgressions struggle to survive laundry-labor-camp conditions and the malevolence of the nuns. Mullan puts Catholicism's ingrained misogyny to the cosh in this scathing, fact-based Dickensian drama featuring Geraldine McEwan as the mother superior from hell.

Graham Fuller

REVIEW: LE DIVORCE (Fox Searchlight)

Directed by James Ivory

Isabel (Kate Hudson) arrives in Paris to learn that her pregnant sister (Naomi Watts) has just been dumped by her French husband. Her sibling's drama and her own affair with an older married diplomat offer the aimless California girl a crash course in la vie francaise. While the clash between American and Gallic traditions grows a bit tiresome, this amusing comedy of manners includes some priceless details.

Andrea Meyer

REVIEW: CAMP (IFC Films)

Directed by Todd Graff

In a talent camp for aspiring Broadway hoofers and warblers, boy meets boy meets girl, sexual boundaries are altered, and shattered illusions are mended as the kids put on a show of their alcoholic supervisor's forgotten songs; even Stephen Sondheim shows up. Graft's direction sparkles, and when it's not being twee, this quasi-queer Fame (1980) update is delightfully tart.

GF

REVIEW: THE HOLY LAND (Cavu)

Directed by Eltan Gorlin

A randy rabbinical student visits a young Russian prostitute and quickly falls for her. So, too, for her hangout, a Jerusalem dive bar that could well serve as a debauched model for what might lie at the end of George Bush's "road map" for the Middle East--a place where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, atheists, devouts, and seculars mix freely. This timeless, if unoriginal, love story benefits from topicality and sharp direction.

Scott Lyle Cohen

REVIEW: STEP INTO LIQUID (Artisan)

Directed by Dana Brown

The son of The Endless Summer (1966) director Bruce Brown has made a surf classic all his own. With incredible footage of bone-crushing waves, some of the sport's biggest talents, and their cutting-edge toys--in addition to a keen representation of the sport's spiritual side--Liquid is a summer must, a documentary sure to take both surfers and landlubbers alike on one hell of a ride.

Kelly Brant