Thursday, March 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Dreamcatcher goes from good to gory

Is half a good movie better than none at all? It depends on your tolerance for blood, guts and the usual monstrous computer-generated suspects. Because although Dreamcatcher starts superbly, it quickly degenerates into a bloody mixture of Alien, Stand by Me and "The X-Files." Or, as the film's four protagonists would say, "SSDD."

Still, in an uncertain world, it's good to know there are people you can (partially) rely on--like Stephen King, director Lawrence Kasdan and his co-writer William Goldman (Hearts in Atlantis). They're apparently very happy to churn out the same shite every different day for a fat fee.

King's 2001 novel was the first one he wrote after his near-fatal run-in with a minivan in June 1999. And his discursive story revisits a gaggle of familiar King concerns: friendship and childhood nostalgia, aliens and bodysnatchers, telepathy, vicious monsters and, not surprisingly, nasty car crashes.

When strange things start happening in the snowy Maine woods, hunters Jonesy, Henry, Pete and Beaver (respectively Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Timothy Olyphant and Jason Lee) are grateful for the gift of vaguely telepathic powers that a fifth friend, "Duddits" (Donnie Wahlberg), gave each of them after they saved him from bullies 20 years earlier.

Too bad that King's plot requires the most fun, foul-mouthed character to die early on. And although the acting is generally excellent, military man Morgan Freeman merely goes through the motions, and is utterly upstaged by his underling Tom Sizemore.

The genuine, jump-in-your-seat scares are few. But the slimy, murderous "shit weasels" are amazingly lifelike, and there's plenty of violence and fake blood to keep the goreheads happy. Or as King disingenuously but accurately writes in the book, "So much for the Hollywood version of how shit like this works."--Anthony Allison

View from the Top's retro look

If you care about such things, you may notice that View from the Top is a very strange movie indeed. For starters, there's the inexplicable presence of Gwyneth Paltrow, who is either paying down some serious debt or making good on a particularly reckless promise. Then there's the director, Brazilian-born Bruno Barreto, who helmed the riveting political-hostage movie Four Days in September. Not exactly the obvious choice for a formulaic, mildly humorous yarn about a dreamy--but leggy--salesgirl from Silver Spring, Nev., who longs to be a waitress in the sky.

But there's more oddness. Watching the herds of perfectly coiffed, couture-uniformed stewardesses stride across glassy terminal floors in lethal heels and jaunty pillbox hats, you might wonder if the script (by Eric Wald) was penned in the '60s. Stewardesses have not looked this immaculate, this sexy or this thrilled with their jobs since Airplane!--a film, you may recall, that wasn't exactly a documentary. Yet here we are, watching trailer-trash Donna (Paltrow) pursue her destiny under the tutelage of a wall-eyed instructor (Mike Myers, all of whose best lines are in the previews) and a classy mentor (Candice Bergen, whose superb comic timing is best viewed in Alan J. Pakula's wonderful 1979 comedy Starting Over).

Throw in a hunky boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo from You Can Count on Me), a couple of pals who could do double duty as flotation devices (Kelly Preston and Christina Applegate), and a token gay steward (Joshua Malina, the new guy on "The West Wing"), and the stage is set for Donna's Life Lesson. Can you guess what it is? No, it's not that Rob Lowe's career consists entirely of subliminal cameos; the most important thing Donna learns in the entire movie is that Nevada may be the only state where a neon-pink sateen minidress is actually considered a uniform.--Jeannette Catsoulis