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December 5-11, 2002 movie shorts NewANALYZE THAT Back for a second session, Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal return as a troubled mobster and his equally neurotic therapist, in a rote sequel that’s sporadically funny but woefully disorganized and often plain tedious. The two are thrown together after De Niro feigns psychosis to get out of prison and is released into Crystal’s custody, thus connecting them at the hip for the rest of the movie. There are moments of inspiration -- De Niro and Crystal warbling selections from West Side Story, Anthony LaPaglia as the star of a Sopranos-esque TV show, anything involving Lisa Kudrow -- but the whole mess seems shockingly underdeveloped, or would if we weren’t used to seeing barely fleshed-out premises get greenlit on a regular basis. If comedy is all about timing, then comic films are all about structure, and Analyze That is a half-built bungalow.--Sam Adams (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; Bryn Mawr; Cinemagic; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Riverview) EMPIRE Of the many crazy gangster movie clichés in Franc. Reyes’ movie, Isabella Rossellini’s big fat hair has to be the loony-toonsiest. She plays drug queenpin La Colombiana, peeved but intrigued when her best dealer Vic (John Leguizamo) says he wants out, to pursue “legit” opportunities. These come his way through Peter Sarsgaard (if it matters, his girlfriend Denise Richards goes to college with Vic’s, Delilah Cotto), an upscale investment banker who promises lavish returns on Leguizamo’s $4 million. But greed is bad now, and slick-yapping white boys in Armani suits are as cutthroat and dim-witted as Vic’s fellow dealers and homies (among them, Vincent Laresca, Fat Joe, Treach and Carlos Léon, better known as Madonna’s baby-daddy -- he ends up with a bullet in his forehead). The first film produced by the Hispanic-focused Arenas Entertainment (a division of Universal), the film is painfully predictable and feels like it’s been edited with a lawnmower, but features a sharp score by Rubén Blades, some fabulous lighting, and the always brave, always compelling Leguizamo, who swaggers more convincingly than Paul Muni, and more subtly than Al Pacino.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview) EQUILIBRIUM After this and Reign of Fire, Christian Bale movies are starting to seem like a seriously bad idea. (Fans of Newsies and Swing Kids are invited to register their protest.) Bale’s choice of lead roles, American Psycho included, seems to have more to do with scoping out opportunities to doff his shirt and look serious than anything resembling a worthwhile script. Writer-director Kurt Wimmer, who seems to take himself very seriously indeed, has cooked up a dour Orwellian retread in which Bale plays a high-ranking Clerick [sic], part of a militaristic force charged arresting “sense offenders” -- people who flout the rules of dystopian Libira by going off their mandated government Prozac-type medication and daring to feel. Bale accidentally drops his dose one day, and before you know it, he’s turning away from his ambitious partner Taye Diggs and towards comely revolutionary Emily Watson (Metroland reunion, anyone?). Wimmer’s schematic, derivative vison is bad enough, but the bland brew turns rancid when he throws in large stretches of Matrix-style action (the intense training allowed by emotion-free lives having turned humans into fighting machines). The Matrix’s disingenuous rationale for allowing the hero to gun down legions of enemy soldiers without consequence slipped by because the movie was so obviously a cartoon, but Equilibrium is too monotonously grim to allow for any such embellishment; it just lets Bale gun people down because it looks cool. That a movie devoted to individuality is so willing to treat characters like cannon fodder would be a killing irony, if Equilibrium weren’t already dead on arrival.--S.A. (UA 69th St.; UA Riverview)
See Cindy Fuchs’ review and Sam Adams’ interview with writer/director Rebecca Miller.
8 MILE If there is raw ambition and desire in 8 Mile, most of it is in the syncopated blasts of “Lose Yourself,” Eminem’s advance-released single from the film’s soundtrack. The movie shows only how Rabbit, an aspiring rapper whose character is modeled after Eminem, arrives at a point where the passion starts to brew. Director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) gives us the semi-glossy, semi-gritty life of a clan of young adults in 1995 Detroit. Rabbit is the group’s quietest member, revered for his lyrical skills but mocked for his “hot” mother (Kim Basinger). Frustrated and ambivalent, Rabbit can’t seem to find a way to show off his talents. In steps Mekhi Phifer, with astoundingly phony dreadlocks, plays Future, who hosts a weekly MC battle at a downtown club and urges Rabbit to freestyle. It’s a credit to Eminem that he can play a role close to home and make us forget, if only occasionally, that he is Eminem. Most of the time, Rabbit looks more fragile than angry: The bleached blond hair has been replaced with a buzzcut and even when he gets physically violent, there is a boyish look of fear in Rabbit’s eyes. There’s also a discomfiting sense that 8 Mile is some kind of apologia for Eminem the pop star. Amid his friends, Rabbit is the center of wisdom and calm. In one scene we find Rabbit rapping about the difference between “faggots” and “gays”; what he objects to is cowardice, not homosexuality. Too often, he is portrayed as an innocent victimized by his mother, by poverty and by his own fear. What Hanson seems to forget is that Eminem is a compelling persona precisely because of his conflicts and contradictions. Rabbit’s onstage antics have all the self-deprecating humor and wordplay of his real-life prototype. Only here do we understand how an art form can both inspire these characters and provide them with needed escape. But it also raises the deep suspicion that Eminem’s life might be best told through his own songs.--Elisa Ludwig (Bridge; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview) ADAM SANDLER’S EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS It’s not news that Adam Sandler loves himself too much. His characters all follow the same trajectory: vulnerable and full of self-effacing charm, they worm their ways into the hearts of great girls and achieve a moral rightness. In his first foray into animation, Sandler voices three characters: gnarly smalltown screw-up Davey, and the twin elderly folks -- volunteer basketball referee Whitey and his stay-at-home sister Eleanore -- who take him in when his trailer burns down. At least he’s not playing the girl (that would be a little too creepy, even for Sandler). Fresh off his astounding good use in Punch Drunk Love, the erstwhile-Opera-Man-meets-Scrooge can’t get out of his own way, piling up poop jokes, fat jokes, feet jokes, wig jokes and epilepsy jokes, and a few complaints about Xmas and Hanukkah. All this turns mushy when 33-year-old Davey, an angry drunk for most of the 75-minute cartoon, finds love, from himself/Sandler, disguised as the 70-something Whitey, who also needs love, from himself, disguised as his sister and also as Davey. Add to this some reindeer who hang around watching over Whitey, with little squeaks also voiced by Sandler: enough, we surrender. --C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Grant; UA Riverview)
Atom Egoyan’s Ararat opens with a close shot of paintbrushes; in the background stands an easel and, nearby, artist Arshile Gorky (Simon Abkarian), painting a portrait of himself and his mother. Quietly, this first scene sets up everything that follows, including its evocation of Gorky’s own troubled past. He survived the Armenian massacre by the Turkish army during World War I, losing his mother in the city of Van, near Mount Ararat. The movie follows a zig-zag route, moving in and out of times and settings, breaking down characters’ experiences, recollections and self-images. Gorky is the subject of scrutiny throughout the film, by multiple writers and readers. Art historian Ani (Arsinée Khanjian) has written a book on Gorky, citing his survival of the massacre as a source for his art. In turn, she’s hired to consult on a film about the genocide by screenwriter Rouben (Eric Bogosian) and director Edward Saroyan (Charles Aznavour), seeking just such an identifiable character to propel their commercial enterprise. All being of Armenian descent, each has a personal stake in telling the story, and the actors, including Martin (Bruce Greenwood) and the half-Turkish Ali (Elias Koteas) rethink some of their own self-identifications. Elsewhere, Ani’s tangled familial relationships, particularly with her18-year-old son Raffi (David Alpay) inspire chaos and meanness as much as understanding and generosity. Elegant and deliberate in its evocation of these terrible but also revelatory experiences, Ararat is both intellectual and deeply passionate. Beyond recounting this story, Ararat investigates the nature of storytelling, the reasons for particular stories and the ways that stories are interpreted. History and familial lore become a collection of stories that are told and retold, repressed and refashioned to suit emotional, political and economic needs.--C.F. (Ritz Five) Barbershop As The Girl in Barbershop, Philadelphia’s own E-V-E shows again that she plays very well with boys: Ice Cube, Sean Patrick Thomas, Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Michael Ealy and Keith David, most of whom work in Cube’s Chicago barbershop, and who share experiences and jokes. The plot is basic, though more strained than it needs to be, with Cube selling the shop (in his family for over 40 years) to gangster David in the morning, then endeavoring to reverse the decision over the rest of the day.--C.F. (UA Cheltenham)
Michael Moore specializes in political theater, but his record on follow-up isn’t great, to say nothing of his willingness to trim the truth to fit an easy argument. That’s what makes Bowling for Columbine such a surprise: it’s not afraid to ask questions it doesn’t know the answers to. Calling it disorganized or inconclusive misses the point; Moore has deliberately taken on a subject -- the American propensity for violence -- that can’t be explained, just to see how close to the impossible he can get. Ranging all over the place, both physically and thematically, Bowling begins, of course, with our fondness for guns, but Moore, an NRA member and former child marksman, pushes past that answer; Canada, he points out, has more guns per household, although nothing remotely approaching our gun deaths. Moore points fingers at retailers who offer cut-rate ammunition, at racial and economic disparities, and at a media that makes it seem like we’re more violent than we actually are. He goes to Columbine, and to Littleton, interviewing people from Marilyn Manson to South Park’s Matt Stone -- who, with his account of growing up bullied in Colorado, emerges as the movie’s voice of reason -- to NRA President Charlton Heston, who blames the U.S.’s rate of violence on “ethnic mixing.” Bowling is a sprawl, it’s true, but it’s ambitious, not confused.--S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse) DIE ANOTHER DAY Ouch, ouch, ouch. As Die Another Day opens. James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is being tortured almost to death. Captured by North Koreans, following a chase scene that ends in the apparent death of young and vociferous Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee), Bond spends 14 months being half-drowned, stung by scorpions, electrocuted and kicked. By the time Bond is exchanged for another prisoner, the dastardly Zao (Rick Yune), he’s hairy and beat-down. When M (Judi Dench) sees him back at HQ, she tells him she thinks he divulged info while drugged and that he’s “no longer useful.” Well, that’s enough for Bond: Within seconds, he’s escaped, trying to find out who betrayed him in North Korea and redeem himself. From here, the 20th film in the series delivers what you expect -- numerous stunts, excellent cars (Bond’s turns invisible), fabulous ice and Madonna as Verity the fencing instructor. The Korean villain is so self-hating and driven to rule the world that not only does he engineer a satellite that’s a combination artificial sun/laser-style weapon, he also engages in some genetic replacement. Bond’s own issues also have to do with self-identity: Not only does he feel rejected, he’s also looking older, he squints more and shows strain when engaged in major stunts. Brosnan carries all this well, but here enters Halle Berry, as Jinx, who’s good with puns, a good shot and decently mimics Ursula Andress’ infamous rise-from-the-sea. Aside from Berry’s celebrity, Jinx brings into Bond’s white-guy heroic world a black woman who can not only keep up and save him, but also whoop him. The downside is that the climactic sequences are spread over the two heroes’ clashes with villains, inevitably leading to dilution, while Jinx looks cooler -- more threatening and slinkier -- in the formfitting camouflage than Bond does.--C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bridge; Ritz 16; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview) EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO Despite the presence of Y Tu Mamá También hottie Gael García Bernal in the lead, this tale of inflamed passions and covert sin is pulp-novel stuff. It doesn’t help that by recent standards, Bernal’s Padre Amaro is practically a piker when it comes to church corruption -- sure, he breaks his vow of chastity and sells out a fellow priest who’s gone to help campesinos in the mountains against his bishop’s will, but if that makes him a bad priest, it doesn’t make him a horrible person. Really, the Catholic Church has worse things to worry about.--S.A.(Ritz East; Ritz 16)/p> THE EMPEROR’S CLUB The Emperor’s Club is set at a prestigious boarding school and focuses on the conflict between beloved teacher Kevin Kline and problem child Emile Hirsch. Hirsch, the spoiled child of a U.S. senator, has intelligence but no character -- “character” is a word that gets used a lot here -- which we find when the class reunites in the movie’s ungainly closing third, when we come out of what’s apparently been only a long flashback. Replacing actors we’ve been watching for more than an hour is a risky move and the restaging of the school’s “Mr. Julius Caesar” says less about character than it does about daffy prep-school traditions.--S.A. (Bala; Ritz Five; Ritz 16) EXTREME OPS (No review.) A haiku: So we're like skiing? And these bad guys are all like “Dude, you're gettin' killed.” (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA Riverview)
Todd Haynes’ magnificently obsessed version of a Douglas Sirk melodrama introduces Cathy (a blond, peppy Julianne Moore), the perfect suburban wife and hostess, with two children, a black maid (Viola Davis) and a hard-working husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid) who slips out of work one night, to a dimly lit underground bar. Frank’s plight is portrayed as it would have been at the time, but we’re understanding, not clucking our tongues. The resurgence of the passion Frank thought he’d quelled is hardest on Cathy, who turns to her black gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) for help. Far from Heaven is a stylistic marvel: though it’s still a little more impressive than impassioned, the sophistication with which Haynes has intermingled the modern and postmodern is awe-inspiring.--S.A. (Bala; Ritz Five; Ritz 16) FRIDA The innovative melding of art and biography grants Taymor’s film -- written by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas, and based on a biography by Hayden Herrera -- an uncanny and welcome grace. It’s well known that Frida (played by Salma Hayek) suffered mightily and throughout her life, emotionally, spiritually and physically: a 1925 trolley wreck breaks her back and leaves her in a body cast for years. This pain became the primary source of her art (her many self-portraits are her most famous legacy) as well as a dreadful, inevitable focus. Throughout Frida’s recovery, her photographer father (Roger Rees) dotes on her, while her mother (Patricia Reyes Spíndola) frets that her chance for proper marriage is over. This standard parental divide more or less sets up Frida’s lifelong investment in genderfuck: She rejects expectations that girls should stay home and cook, throwing herself into her painting and politics (she and her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) were dedicated Communists) with bracing enthusiasm..--C.F. (Bala; Ritz East; Ritz 16) FRIDAY AFTER NEXT Just in time for “Christmas in the hood” (and the “ho, ho, ho” joke is too obvious and unfunny), first-time director Marcus Raboy has Craig and Day-Day (IceCube and Mike Epps) start new jobs as rent-a-cops down at the mall. Conveniently, Craig’s Willie (John Witherspoon) and Elroy (Don “D.C.” Curry) also work there, in their new BBQ joint. And on this Friday, they do what they always do: complain about their money situation, run from thugs, call each other names, smoke weed, flirt with a pretty girl and tangle with church ladies. In other words, nothing’s changed, except maybe that you’ve seen this before, twice, and Chris Tucker has moved on to more lucrative jokes.--C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview) HALF PAST DEAD The latest entry into the Steven-Seagal-with-rap-costar mini-genre pairs the born-again Buddha with two: Ja Rule (as a version of his hip-hop persona -- adorable, bighearted thug) and Kurupt (as skinny-funny third guy). Set in a sort of future, the film places Ja and Seagal as prisoners in the newly reopened, Oz-ified Alcatraz (Seagal is not really an inmate, but an undercover fed). Morris Chestnut breaks in to the prison with a super-SWAT-type team, planning to force “dead man walking” Bruce Weitz to confess the location of $200 million in gold. But Don Michael Paul’s debut feature piles on much rain and lightning, Matrix-y costumes, time-lapsing zap-pans and all varieties of shooting: two-fisted, from mid-air, faux-video-gaming. My favorite fight pits Seagal against Chestnut on giant chains, kicking and swinging at each other like they’re in some heavy-metal version of Crouching Tiger’s bamboo trees scene. --C.F. (UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview) HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS Chris Columbus’ literal-minded faithfulness to the Harry Potter books may produce insufferably lengthy films (the new one clocks in at 2 hours, 41 minutes), but they also allow you to pass leisurely through J.K. Rowling’s magnificent plots. At least they continue to pick good actors to add to a cast that includes Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman and the late Richard Harris. This time around, Kenneth Branagh joins the cast as the pompous, vain Gilderoy Lockhart and The Patriot’s Jason Isaacs steps in as Lucius Malfoy, father of the bratty Draco. What Chamber makes you impatient for is the day when Y Tu Mamá También’s Alfonso Cuarón takes the helm with movie no. 3. Now that should be something to see. --S.A. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; Bridge; Narberth; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview) MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING Toula (Nia Vardalos) falls in love with Ian (John Corbett) and everything’s just wonderful with her Greek family -- except he isn’t Greek. What follows is essentially Meet the Greek Parents: The large, gregarious family is suspicious of Ian the Protestant and -- gasp -- vegetarian.--Ryan Godfrey (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)
Part of growing is admitting your age. So if Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love strains less overtly for “mature” themes than his overreaching Magnolia, it’s because Anderson is beginning to stop pretending to be his 60-year-old idols. That interest is repaid in a performance of surprising depth from Adam Sandler, who plays Barry, a variation on his own honed-to-bluntness comic persona -- with the catch that the world around him is anything but comic. Sandler is as much of a manchild here as in any one of his tiresome movies, but his boyish façade is frequently shattered by explosive fits of rage. Since at times, Anderson seems merely to be testing his audience’s capacity for annoyance, the challenge for Sandler and Emily Watson, then, is to meet cute amid the din, which they do with ample charm. Punch-Drunk Love has the focus that’s been missing from Anderson’s films, along with a manic energy all its own.--S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)
Ana (excellent America Ferrera) is graduating from Beverly Hills High School. But unlike her privileged classmates, Ana must go to work: her mother Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros) and sister (Ingrid Oliu) need her to work at the sister’s sweatshop. Equally stubborn and impassioned, Carmen and Ana argue vigorously -- about Ana’s curvy body, Carmen’s unlikely pregnancy, Ana’s white boyfriend, and “real women’s” expectations and desires. Written by George LaVoo and Josefina López (based on her play), Patricia Cardoso’s first feature is alternately soapy and rousing, predictable and resourceful.--C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)
The director of Mouse Hunt and The Mexican doesn’t seem like the greatest choice to remake a cultishly popular Japanese horror movie, but The Ring’s premise is simple, creepy, and inescapable: a videotape which kills everyone who watches it after exactly seven days. Skeptical reporter Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) watches the tape after her niece dies mysterious, and then the clock starts ticking. Though Watts’ investigation takes her all over gloomy Seattle, you hardly ever see more than two or three people in the frame -- the film thrives on isolation, the product of a society centered around the TV. Though The Ring abuses the loud-noise scare, it successfully rachets up the tension and never goes slack, meaning you keep having to find new edges on your seat.--S.A. (AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)
Roger Dodger opens with a bravura sequence, the kind that either elevates or sinks an entire film. Drunk less on alcohol than on his own glibness, Roger (Campbell Scott), a mid-level ad exec who’s enjoying a boozy lunch with several colleagues, launches into a spellbinding explanation of how men are about to become “extinct.” They’ve had their traditional roles usurped, -- all that’s left is for women to figure out how to reproduce without sperm and men will be nothing more than a source of cheap labor. It’s hogwash, the worst kind of antifeminist drivel, but Scott puts it across with conviction. That’s pretty much what Dylan Kidd’s debut feature is about. There’s no particular insight into relations between the sexes; Kidd doesn’t have the heart for real provocation. And the plot’s just enough to serve: Roger is abruptly saddled with his teenage nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), who’s decided it’s time for Uncle Roger to teach him the finer points of wooing the fairer sex. Roger jumps at the chance -- but as is usually the case in a movie set in the span of a day, Roger is near his breaking point. Like a lot of mid-scale indies, Roger Dodger is essentially a one-character movie, but there are worse actors to focus your attention on than Campbell Scott.--S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse) THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 In Michael Lembeck’s 8-years-in-the-making sequel, Tim Allen must tend to his son (Eric Lloyd), who’s been tagging school walls with pro-Christmas graffiti; and he must fulfill the Second Clause, which is to marry by Christmas Eve or the “de-santafication process” will rob all children of the holiday forever. His subsequent romancing of the son’s principal (Elizabeth Mitchell) is by the numbers, but the duplicate Santa he leaves at the plant, to look after the multi-culti elves’ last-minute toy production, is increasingly loony-tunes, occasionally even funny. The action split, however, means that the regular Santa story is more markedly tedious by comparison.--C.F. (UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)
Though fans of Andrei Tarkovsky’s original will no doubt grouse that Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris has turned the story into soap opera, what he’s actually done is deftly locate the emotional core without sloughing off its philosophical elements. George Clooney, in a performance of stunning vulnerability, plays Chris Kelvin, an Earthbound psychiatrist called to investigate a disturbance on a space station orbiting the distant planet Solaris, whose crew has all but fallen out of contact, after mission commander Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur) sends a cryptic S.O.S. Fortunately, Kelvin, after the loss of his wife (Natasha McElhone), has little to leave behind. Arriving on board, Kelvin finds no answers, just a lot of open space. There are blood stains and bodies in the morgue, but the remaining crew members won’t tell Kelvin what went on. “I could tell you what’s happening,” says Snow (Jeremy Davies), “but I don’t know if that’d really tell you what’s happening.” Those warnings might apply equally to Solaris as a whole. Divulging the film’s scant, and slowly unraveling, plot might provide a sense of structure, but it wouldn’t explain its delicate layers of meaning, or the deftness with which Soderbergh flips between Kelvin’s ordeal and his life back on Earth. Not only is it clear that the planet is causing the delusions that have affected the entire crew, but Solaris is responsive to their presence: It’s an intelligent world. Mirrors and reflections are constantly evoked in images and in dialogue, but they’re less reflections than refractions, overlapping pieces of an inconceivable whole. The film’s strategy is to bury its revelations in the background, and then give you plenty of time to sort them out, as the characters do the same. We’re united with Kelvin in his quest to make sense of Solaris (and, in our case, Solaris), and in his eventual decision to submit rather than dissect.--S.A. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bridge; Bryn Mawr; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Riverview)
The International Space Station is lofty testament to the wonders of worldwide cooperation in the name of science. It also makes for some amazing cinematography. Space Station, the latest IMAX film, gives viewers the typical IMAXian bird’s-eye view of things -- in this case, life aboard a space station -- with a twist. The film was shot by astronauts, who not only master the elements of space travel, but do a very fine job taking pictures as well.--Howard Altman (Tuttleman Imax Theater, Franklin Institute)
Clearly cast in the mold of Buena Vista Social Club, Paul Justman’s documentary concerns The Funk Brothers, the unofficial conglomeration of musicians who backed virtually every hit from Motown’s Detroit era. Based on Allan Slutsky’s biography of legendary bassist James Jamerson, Shadows mixes interviews with the surviving Funk Brothers with new performance footage, where Chaka Khan, Bootsy Collins, Ben Harper, Joan Osborne and others step in for Motown’s greatest vocalists. Based on an orchestral style that kept individual musicians from standing out and a factory mentality that discouraged the lifting of the curtain, these musicians have languished in obscurity despite being part of some of pop music’s best-known songs. You don’t feel educated so much as elated -- by the music, and the sense of a lingering wrong finally redressed. --S.A.(Ritz at the Bourse) THEY (No review.) A haiku: Don’t get me wrong, Wes: I am, as they say, pro noun, But They is no Them. (Cinemagic; UA Riverview) TREASURE PLANET Oh, the crimes that are committed in the name of literature. No doubt the folks who made this outer-space travesty of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island did so in the name of introducing kids to the original story, but such patronizing attempts grossly overestimate the audience’s ability to be manipulated. Leaving the story intact means making Long John Silver a robot with an electric eye patch (que?) and having the young Jim scrape space barnacles off the ship’s hull. To pull younger viewers in takes real imagination, which has unfortunately been forced to walk the space plank. --S.A.(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview) 
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