A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow A "South Park" Christmas; Marv Albert's fall from grace on A&E "A Civil Action" Reviewed by Charles Taylor Director Steven Zaillian does author Jonathan Harr a great injustice with his reductionist adaptation   Y E S T E R D A Y "The Cruise" Reviewed by Christine Schomer A single documentary about one man's life on the edge saved the spirit of independent film (12/22/98)   R E C E N T_. M O V I E S "You've Got Mail" Reviewed by Laura Miller Nora Ephron's update of "The Shop Around the Corner" rails against corporate chain stores to predictably bland effect (12/18/98) "The General" Reviewed by Charles Taylor With a mixture of humor and brutality, John Boorman's extraordinary film paints a dark portrait of Irish outlaw Martin Cahill (12/18/98) "The Prince of Egypt" Reviewed by Charles Taylor A kitschy cartoon epic that's not for kids -- or adults (12/18/98) Safe Haven By Charles Taylor Director John Boorman talks about his new film, "The General," family values and his fascination with nonconformity (12/17/98) Home Movies By Charles Taylor John Boorman's enchanted comedy "Where the Heart Is" sings the praises of hearth and home (12/14/98)   BROWSE THE MOVIE ARCHIVES COLUMNS FEATURES REVIEWS INTERVIEWS

HOLLYWOOD STINKERS | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - "Hurlyburly" is a sort of laboratory of actorly essences, where Penn, Spacey, Shandling and especially Palminteri are invited to explore the outer limits of their established personae. Take Penn, the most Method-ish of contemporary actors. His style embodies a willingness to strive emotionally for the inexpressible in human life -- an approach that brings to mind the films of the late, great actor-director John Cassavetes. The role of Eddie demands his deepest plunge yet into tongue-tied anguish, with triumphant results. Similarly, Spacey is invited to plumb the meaning of his remote, manipulative charm -- to demonstrate with sinister relish the precise degrees between flip and sarcastic. He's superb, as is the wincing, cringing Shandling, who plays a subvariant of the same sort of scoundrel. But the revelation is Palminteri. The suppressed rage suggested by this actor's physiognomy and verbal style has never been well exploited. In fact, Palminteri gets palmed off as a cartoon of danger, a lug with a heart of gold, in films passable ("Bullets Over Broadway," "A Bronx Tale") and rotten ("Mulholland Falls"). Phil represents a desublimation of Palminteri's previous roles, a chance for the actor to make us understand how much he really knows about the yearning heart of a dangerously stupid and violent man. Think of Bogart in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," where the actor's former control peels away to show paranoia roiling underneath. In what is perhaps the saddest and funniest moment of the film, Palminteri listens hard while Shandling and Spacey discuss the concept of "karma." As he considers his past sins, a look crosses his face that suggests that he alone grasps the damnation these men share, though he can only voice his fears by asking: "Do you have any particular hard data on this karma thing?" There's one important reservation to raise about "Hurlyburly," one that touches on this film and much else, from the plays of Mamet to the films of Neil LaBute ("In the Company of Men," "Your Friends and Neighbors"), even to fiction by writers like Richard Ford and Leonard Michaels. The question is: How many blistering insights into the precise texture of misogyny do we really need? And when does indictment creep into fetishization, into a kind of blissful wallowing in adorable jerkdom? By making sexist monsters the locus of so very much charisma and identification, "Hurlyburly" extends an implicit argument: This is what men are really like; progress is impossible. Men, see here your secret self, and women be warned. "Hurlyburly" serves to focus this question because it has a guilty conscience. Drazan fills the soundtrack with a chorus of ethereal women's voices, as if to say: Here is the female principle missing in these lives, here is the absent grace (never mind that a vision of women as providers of disembodied grace is part of the problem). The degraded and sexualized tokens of desire played by Robin Wright Penn, Meg Ryan and Anna Paquin are given moments of subjectivity and respect by Drazan's camera and Rabe's script. These moments are meant to be crucial, defining, damning -- Paquin is even given the film's last word. Alas, it isn't that these passing gestures of evenhandedness aren't sincere, it's that they don't work. The four men are the subjective center of the film, and they're real to one another in a way that the women never are and never could be. These bozos ratify one another's tormented existence, and the film is helpless to break free. It loves them, and loves their pain, too dearly. "Hurlyburly" earns its keep, in the end, with writerly flash and dramatic virtuosity. But should we now seek a moratorium on fond dissections of sexist camaraderie? I don't know. I'm only certain that a film starring four of Hollywood's best actresses as irresistibly magnetic man-haters could never be made by a major studio. If it could it wouldn't need making, would it? SALON | Dec. 23, 1998 Jonathan Lethem is a frequent contributor to Salon.