TOM DICILLO
American independent filmaker Tom DiCillo loves cinema and hates movies. He grew up watching the films of the great European auteurs - Fellini, Bunuel, Godard - learned about filmmaking at New York University and began his professional career as cinematographer for classmate Jim Jarmusch.
To date DiCillo has made five of his own, funny, quirky films and he's very pleased with his latest, Double Whammy, in which Denis Leary plays a cop whose incredibly bad luck makes him a defective detective. But this staple of American independent cinema has got no time for the general state of filmmaking today. As he puts it:
‘Sometimes I wish someone would structured the film throws out perceived notions about what a crap.”’ standard (in other words, stupid) cop thriller should be.
‘I wanted to tell a cop story but put cop and a couple of drug addict a twist on it,’ he says. ‘As the story killers does provide the Coen
just say “This movie's a piece of
DiCillo just can’t resist commenting on what he calls 'stupid' movies. His most
Tom DiCillo, Luis Guzman and Dennis Leary
in Double Whammy, despite it happening right under his nose in his own apartment building. But the climactic showdown between the
entertaining film, Living in Oblivion, progresses the hero cop, Ray Pluto, brothers wannabes with an ending
which gleefully ridiculed the rampant ego of Hollywood star actors, functions as a treatise on stupidity in filmmaking. Double Whammy, although not overtly
characters - a scriptwriting team, whose foremost concern is the
becomes less and less informed about the crime, as opposed to the them the coveted Cannes Film traditional way of telling that story which usually involves the cop getting closer and closer to the about making movies, features two truth. It struck me that given the contemporary climate of idiocy with see? Hates them, too. which we present heroes, I could
to the film they believe will win
Festival Palme d’Or.
Thus, once again, DiCillo finds himself making a movie about the making of movies. He loves them,
(Miles Fielder)
fame filmmaking might bring them. hang a story on that.‘ I Dtmbe ‘.'./.’I(l/'llll‘,' ope/if, /—ii 7% Jul, Moreover, the way DiCillo has Ray Pluto doesn’t solve the crime See ff}‘/l(3‘.‘.’_ DOCUlleleAHY ART HOUSE
RIVERS AND TIDES (tbc) 90 MIN .00.
"Art for we is a folll‘ of nourishment.' Suggests sculptor Andy Goldssrorthy at the start of this meditative documentary. Audiences on the continent and in the US have certainly fOund lhoivias Hiedelsheiiner's film a rewarding Chew (!t's picked up numerous awardsi.
Goldsworthy seems ambivalent abOut the cameras charms. 'Stop filming and cpllect some stone mstead.‘ he declares. crouched low on a Nova Scotia beach ‘00 soii‘ething useful.” Critics of the artist. who now lives in Dumfriesshire. might suggest that his work is anything but useful. Rivers and Tides sees hiiii build a hellow chamber out of driftwood. only to watch the tide drag it away. deseribe a pile of melting ice as ‘tiill and ripe‘ and scrape red die off stenes and into a stream
In fact. these works have staying power because they are (Eb'le'l‘eldl; and while Golds.vonhy's speech is festooned with purple patches. he is also thorOughly down-to-earth His work concerned with nature and process and life. and it is hard to watch a carefully woven string of leaves slip from their pattern and snake downstream withoLit feeling your soul lift. Seeing Goldsa-lonhy negotiate natural forces is w0rth a hundred trips to a traditional art gallery. and there are moments when this spare. Sl"‘D|€ documentary seems to renew the wonder of the world. At other fi“es rt feels a life uneventful, but yOu can't rush a ll‘.(?' — a":: on can't fight '."e tide. lJaines Sn‘iarti I CCA. Glasgow and The 00'“ "on. Edinburgh from Fri 78 Jun See 8 (I .0 (ifu’e.
SEX IS COMEDY (18) 92min oooo
Inspired by her own experiences of shooting a sex scene,- a“ A ma sceufl. Catherine Breillat Clesrtlefl 2:. wake a ‘m tl‘ai examine her own ambivaler‘t re'atvws" es .222". NJ actors. ("Vt the lengths to which she's preoa'e'l it. go i" order to ext'acf 'truthful' performances froii‘ trien‘. Diayig fl‘e Brewat figure of Jeanne in Sex Is COmedv is Anne ‘.'i~i.‘a Pariliauo. .vi‘o finds the problems mOunting up on the stadic set of ne' ‘eati/e Intimate Scenes. Preparing ‘or a i. .(gta' l,eil"X)i’l‘ Ss(:(}Li(;"i’.,(:. “ which a teenage girl loses her .irgint, to an o :ler ac Jeanne discovers that her male lead Gregore Ct; l" repeater: , refuses to comply with her 'eLi..ests. He wants Tc keep '1‘?) socks on at all IllT‘QS. wastes (;"(:'§l, ‘ rt "-9 1”: area. air; fails to kiss his CO-star iROxane l/i<-;5;'i;. ita t" to". .i "t; passion. His co-star. n‘eanxine. "Lat'es "it," ’;"-s<;'r_;e" partner. hasn't been told about The ‘ake l.‘.:" E; "e' U; sea". "fl. and has a clause in her contract ‘c':; ’l’: "g iota iv:
Full of Breillat's provocatze slogai‘s — such as. 'sex s we do the most. and am”. '."e 'easf' - s a darkly amusing self-portrait that ass t' was? a battlegr0und in the conflict cet sexes, Pass/fate, committed to the artist c v." "e' :M. Dar am: Character alternately cables. '1»’;":es. ’15; t" her cast: 'I hate then“ but deer. TIT, confides to her assistant AS'WE, "‘et'c may seen“ bruta‘. yet the res. ts. . s r. e s sveam tears of Mesdwda's actress n the ‘sa ree, start wt;
(Tom Dawsoni I Fi/mnouse. Edinburg'r ,‘rcn‘ 5’ 253 d... See {re/ex.
Film
poetic ENEMY (18) 138mm .0.
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Pub/ii; I horny plays riut like a cross i)(:l.'.":‘:ll [’70 7/1/00 Shout“, anrl Heat Slayutwk .’l';l(:ll',f: if. plri'ike/l 'iext tu xif,r,era| (yin; .'.'liile the filin long Jan/le'lly analyse-f. the oil/l Hflr'lllf)ll‘,lllp bet .veen llll‘; Keatonesriue (,‘oluiiibo and the slick fox he has set his sights on It's a lot of fun. eri iiieiitly watchable. aehiiigly predictable and pleasingly out (if x/liaek ‘.’/llll the recent work produced by Tlllf) litter of South Korean enfant terrible puppies.
(Paul Dalei I e/er, ted rulea so from Fri 28 Ji 1/
Keatonesque Columbo
' s- . THE LIST 39